Sins of the Father
by MasterGhandalf
Summary: Slade has put his master plan into motion and the Titans move to stop him while a mysterious figure not friendly to either side intervenes, pursuing goals of her own.
1. Prologue: Masks

AN: This story is set in the same timeline as my other _Teen Titans_ fics, and features the conclusion of the Slade subplot that's been working its way through them. You don't have to have read them all to understand what's going on, but I would recommend _The Abyss Gazes Also_, _The Art of War_, and _Child of the Stars_ for getting the full story. They're linked to in my profile page.

**Prologue: Masks**

The tunnels beneath Jump City were not silent. Buried deep beneath the sewers, the shadowed chambers and corridors of the hidden lair were filled with the sounds of machinery pounding, gears turning, and steam escaping. The great machine dominated the tunnels, powerful, mysterious, and implacable, a reflection of the mind of the man who was master here and would be master of so much more before he was done.

He sat on the throne-like chair before a bank of monitors, chin resting on his clasped hands as his one eye focused on one image after another, observing his minions' progress as they acquired the equipment he would need to make his plans reality. He did not see his enemies yet, but he knew they were out there and would strike soon- tomorrow if not tonight. They were of no concern- he was ready for them, had planned for them. They had defeated him in the past, but unlike so many who called themselves masterminds, he learned from his mistakes. This time they would the true depths of his plans until it was too late.

Misdirection, he had learned long ago, was the most valuable weapon in his arsenal, particularly when coupled with theatricality and emotional manipulation. Wheels within wheels…

His servant approached from behind the chair, a concerned look crossing his lined face. "Sir," he said cautiously, for while his master was normally icily calm he had his moments of explosive temper, "your new apprentice wishes me to tell you that he is frustrated that he is not to be allowed to take part in tonight's events. I believe he wishes to engage the Titans himself."

"Tell him to wait, Wintergreen," Slade said in his soft, deadly voice, gaze never leaving the bank of monitors. "He'll have his chance. Remind him that we all have our roles to play, and only if he keeps to his will the plan proceed." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I am so close. Soon, everything that I have long desired and planned for will finally be within my grasp."

* * *

In a small room across town and above the ground, a girl paused to brush out her long white hair (an inheritance from her father) before lifting a mask from where it lay on her bed and holding it up before her. It was a simple thing, really, almost totally featureless except for one eyeslit, a series of grooves near the bottom for breathing, and its odd color scheme- copper on one side, jet black on the other. She'd made it herself in the image of another mask, one whose owner had made it infamous to anyone who paid the slightest attention to news in this part of the country. She wanted to capture some of that fearful reputation for herself, and in the end to turn it back on the one who'd created it.

Carefully she raised the mask and slipped it over her head, turning to face the room's cracked mirror to get a look at herself. She saw a slender figure in a dark grey combat suit, explosives and a cylinder that was actually a collapsed staff belted at her waist, a sword sheathed on her back. Now completed with the mask, the outfit covered every inch of her except for one eye and the white hair that spilled down her neck and over her shoulders.

She'd spend years of her life waiting for this moment, training, stealing, and finding herself in and out of juvenile correction centers in various states. Now, finally, she was ready.

Turning away from the mirror, she slipped out of the motel room window and stalked off into the night.


	2. Chapter 1: The Stranger

**Chapter 1: The Stranger**

Robin crouched on the rooftop, studying the warehouse across the street closely through a pair of binoculars. Over the last week there had been numerous reports of thefts of advanced technology and weapons from buildings like this one; last night a security camera had managed to capture images of the thieves. Recognizing the ninja-like robots immediately, Robin had come to the conclusion that Slade was getting himself geared up for something big, and whatever that something was, it had to be stopped. He knew Slade too well to think that these thefts were anything but a sign something very bad was on the horizon.

"See anything yet?" Cyborg's voice crackled from the miniaturized communicator in Robin's ear. Together the team leader and the half-robot tech genius had gone over the stolen items from each previous warehouse and figured out what exactly the robots were after- power generators and heavy weapons, for the most part. From there they'd figured out which other warehouses held similar goods, and the whole team had spread out across the city to watch for the next target.

"Nothing," Robin said darkly.

"You know, this could be a trap, right? Or part of some scheme?" Cyborg asked. "Slade's not someone you can trust to be after what he looks like he's after. There's always something else going on."

"I know," Robin replied, thinking back to the time when he'd blundered directly into the heart of Slade's latest scheme and nearly become the criminal mastermind's puppet. "But this is our only lead, and – wait. Something's moving."

On the street below, a manhole cover shuddered and then blasted up into the air, landing several feet away and still smoking. A hunchbacked, faceless figure crawled out of the hole, followed by several more. Fanning out, the robots began to march straight for the warehouse.

"We've got company," Robin said.

"On it. I'll call the others, and we'll be there in just a few minutes. What are you gonna do until then?"

Robin stood and pulled a small metal cylinder from his belt, extending it into his staff. "If the robots find what they're looking for, they could be gone by the time you get here," he said. "I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen." He tapped the communicator to silence it, and then reached into his belt with his free hand and pulled out some small grey spheres. Tossing them lightly up and down, he suddenly pulled his hand back and hurled them straight towards the robots.

The spheres impacted on the ground, bursting apart with a surprisingly loud cracking sound and copious amounts of thick smoke. The robots whirled towards the noise, but before they could react Robin was swinging towards them from a grappler cable, shouting a battle cry. He slammed into the lead robot foot-first, sending the machine sprawling. Before it could get back on its feet he struck its face hard with the staff, making a crackling sound and sending sparks flying.

The leader of the Teen Titans heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and he spun to see the other robots surrounding him in a circle, beam weapons raised. Smiling at them, he beckoned with one hand and then jumped off the disabled leader as they fired, spinning in midair and landing in front of another one. Whirling his staff, he struck the robot twice in the face and body, knocking it back but doing no apparent harm otherwise. That was the problem with fighting Slade's robots- while not particularly skilled, they had no conception of pain or fear the way a living opponent would, and never stopped fighting unless given an order to retreat or completely disabled.

The robot raised its weapon and fired off a series of short blasts, forcing Robin to dodge before falling back into circling with it. "Can you hear me through this thing, Slade?" he asked quietly, knowing that his nemesis had used the robots to communicate before. "What are you up to this time?" If Slade did here, however, he didn't answer. Robin didn't suppose he'd really expected him to. Slade never said a single word that didn't have a carefully crafted purpose.

Suddenly darting forward, Robin leaped over the robot's head in a somersault and brought his staff up and slammed it into its back before it could turn around and reorient itself on him. There was the satisfying crunch of metal and circuitry and the robot pitched forward, twitching feebly for a few moments before expiring.

Robin looked up, eyes widening as he realized the other robots were nowhere in sight. Mentally railing on himself for getting so caught up in one opponent he'd lost track of the others, he rushed towards the warehouse, hoping they'd gone that way, rather than back into the tunnels where he'd only lose them again. His suspicions were confirmed as he saw the man-sized (or robot-sized) hole that had been burned into the building's door. Clutching his staff tightly, he ducked inside, looking around warily for his enemies.

The darkness within the warehouse was completely still. Robin paced forward slowly as his eyes adjusted to it, all of his senses alert to any sign of the robots- stealth was not among their strengths. After a few minutes, he was rewarded by the sound of a box sliding and falling somewhere off in the darkness. He spun towards the sound- only to stop, staring, at what had made it.

The robots had climbed high up a stack of crates and opened the top one, removing from it a giant metal weapon that pulsed with violet light. Two of the robots now held it between them, aiming it carefully before one of them pulled the trigger. There was a brilliant flash of light and Robin ducked into a role, barely managing to save himself from the fireball and crater that were blasted into the ground exactly where he'd been standing.

More sound of clattering came from the sides, and Robin looked around him to see more of the robots- many more- encircling him. It looked like this _had_ been a trap, with both the unknown weapon and the robots waiting in the wings- and Robin had walked right into it.

The robots with the weapon raised it so that it pointed directly at Robin, and prepared to fire it again.

* * *

The girl crouched on the edge of the warehouse's skylight, looking down at the fight taking place beneath her. The boy in the red and green- she thought she'd seen a paper recently that named him as Robin, though she wasn't completely sure- was skilled, but he wasn't going to last long against the combined might of so many battle robots and the powerful laser weapon they'd found. From the looks of things, his team wouldn't be arriving in time to do anything other than clean up the mess. The girl scowled beneath her mask. That was what came from depending on other people. She'd learned long ago that the only person she could rely on was herself.

Still, this Robin and his Titans might be useful in helping her get what she wanted. Quickly weighing her options, the girl decided on a course of action and drew her sword, preparing herself to spring.

* * *

The sound of breaking glass drew Robin's attention away from the robots. Looking up, he saw the skylight shatter as a slender figure dropped from it and landed on a stack of crates near the robots with the laser. He frowned- this wasn't the Titans, and though he couldn't make out details in the shadows of the warehouse, he was reasonably sure he didn't know the costume. Something about both the size and the agility of the figure suggested Red X, but that was highly unlikely- the thief had helped Robin out in the past, but only when he stood to gain from it. If only the mystery person would turn towards him, so he could get a look at their face!

One thing that was certain was that the robots were clearly not expecting this new arrival. They turned to look in the figure's direction and then paused, clearly waiting for some direction. The figure took the opportunity to explode into motion, charging straight for the laser weapon with a gleaming blade in hand. The robots tried to reorient it on this new attacker, but did not have the time to do so. Abandoning their efforts, they drew their personal weapons and opened fire.

The figure darted around the blasts and brought its blade up. Three quick slices followed, and the robot fell from the crates in four distinct pieces. Robin watched, stunned, as its partner met a similar fate, and then the attacker brought the sword down on the weapon itself. It sparked briefly, and then burst into a violet explosion.

Robin shielded his eyes from the light, and then heard the soft sound of his mysterious ally landing behind him. "They're coming now," a voice, soft but distinctly female, hissed. "Think we can take them?"

"Definitely," Robin said. Listening carefully, he could hear the whirring of small motors as the surrounding robots adjusted to the light and raised their weapons. Before they could fire he darted forward, and heard the girl doing the same. The next few minutes consisted entirely of whirling staffs and sword blades and sparks flying from damaged robots. By the time Robin's eyes had cleared completely, the mechanical warriors were all either destroyed or in retreat. Quickly he pulled a small device from his belt and hurled it so that it stuck soundlessly into the last robot's backside. Cyborg's tracker would let them follow the robot's movements back to its home base, though Robin doubted Slade would be sloppy enough that they would find his main lair that way.

He turned towards his rescuer. She knelt beside one of the fallen robots as though examining it- all he could see of her was the gray of her costume and long white hair the spilled from beneath a mask. "Good work," Robin said. "That was some pretty cool fighting you did. So were you just here to break robots, or-" His voice cut off suddenly as the girl rose and turned to face him, and he saw her mask.

"Slade!" Robin hissed the name of the only person he'd ever met who wore a mask like that. Instantly he fell back into a fighting crouch, staff at the ready. True, the girl had helped him against the robots, but that could easily be part of some greater scheme- and he couldn't imagine why anyone who wasn't associated with Slade would even want to wear that particular mask. "Is that it? Are you working for him?" Robin asked when the girl was silent. "Has he got something on you, or are you just doing it for fun?"

The girl regarded him coolly, and then she spoke. "I'm here for my own reasons, not Slade's," she said. "Those reasons- and this mask- are not your business. I'm not your enemy, but don't make the mistake of thinking I'm your friend, either. We might meet again." Quickly she sheathed her sword and drew a grappler from her belt. Raising it high, she fired it at the ceiling and then was pulled swiftly into the air. "Don't follow me."

Robin stood in the center of the warehouse, lost in utter bafflement, after she was gone. It was like Red X all over again, putting him off balance, though unlike X this girl hadn't done anything illegal yet (that he knew of), whatever her reason was for wearing Slade's mask. Finally he heard footsteps behind him and looked up to see his friends rushing into the warehouse, weapons at the ready. They came up short at the sight of their leader standing alone surrounded by robot wreckage.

"Then you have already won the battle?" Starfire asked, looking around in perplexity.

"Dude, what happened here?" Beast Boy asked. "Even you couldn't take on so many Sladebots at once so fast. I think."

"That's what I want to know," Raven put in. "Something here doesn't feel right, but I can't put my finger on what it is."

Robin looked up at the broken skylight and back at his friends. "I wish I knew," he said softly.


	3. Chapter 2: Questions

**Chapter 2: Questions**

Slade sat back in his chair as he studied the images that his monitor played before him. This was footage of tonight's fight, broadcasted directly to him from the visual sensors of his robot soldiers, and while he wouldn't normally scrutinize a routine raid so intently after the fact, this was a rather special case. For one thing, Robin had been there- he'd known the boy would turn up eventually; he could be distressingly predictable- but it was the second attacker who truly caught his interest. She was an unknown factor, and Slade knew that unknown factors had a distressing tendency to make a mess of things.

"It would seem we have a new player in this game," he observed quietly to himself as he watched the newcomer tear into his robots. Then for the first time the camera angle was able to get a clean shot on her mask, and Slade felt his one eye widen in sudden cold anger. "Computer- magnify image," he hissed, though he knew full well what he'd see. True to his expectations, the magnified image clearly showed his own mask atop the girl's slender frame, long white hair streaming behind it.

Slade clenched his fist in anger. That someone would appropriate his own mask for their own was more than an insult- it was a challenge. Whoever was under that mask, she had just sent him a message he could not possibly ignore, and somehow he doubted that it had been done in ignorance. The girl wanted Slade's attention badly enough to try and grab it in the most immediate way possible- now she had it. Soon he would know why she wanted it in the first place.

Watching the frozen, magnified image, Slade felt his gaze slide to the girl's exposed hair. Memory from another lifetime teased at him as he recalled another girl with hair that exact shade so long ago, and for a moment he wondered- but no. It was impossible. She was dead- they were all dead. Angrily, the criminal mastermind shook himself back into the present. It didn't matter who the newcomer resembled- emotions and the memories connected to them were useful to him only insofar as they enabled him to manipulate the emotions of others. He _would_ discover the truth here, and he would do so with the ruthless efficiency for which he had become infamous.

Raising his right hand before him, Slade tapped the wrist of his gauntlet and activated the communicator built into it there. "Apprentice," he said to the one who waited on the other end. "I have a task for you."

* * *

In the living room of Titans' Tower, Robin finished his story and looked around at the others expectantly.

"Then you really have no idea who this person was or what she wanted?" Starfire finally asked.

Robin shook his head. "Afraid not," he said. "She wore Slade's mask, but didn't seem to have anything to do with him- I can't imagine he liked having someone help me tear his robots apart like that. She said she wasn't an enemy, but not a friend either. Whatever's going on, I don't like it, but I don't know what to do about it either."

"So you're saying, what we know is that we don't know anything," Cyborg said. "Man, this is like Red X all over again. 'Cept this time I'm hoping we _do_ get a chance to look under the mask before everything's said and done."

"I think this is all part of some big plan Slade has going on," Beast Boy put in. "He sends this girl out to get us all confused, and then while we're confused he does… something. Being sneaky is what he does, remember?"

"That doesn't make any sense," Raven said. "Did you hear what Robin said? She wrecked a bunch of robots, saved Robin's life, and didn't use the opportunity to try and get in good with us. Slade's evil, not self-destructive. He wouldn't waste the robots on a scheme that gets him nothing."

"Just trying to help," the shapechanger said sullenly. Then another idea seemed to strike him, and he cheered up immensely. "Or maybe someone cloned Slade, only they got it wrong, so it's a girl clone. And it's all part of some super-secret clone plot to take over the world!"

"Someone cloned Slade? Like who?" Cyborg said. "You got that one out of comic, didn't you? One Slade's bad enough- nobody'd want _two_ of them running around!"

"So now we're back to square one- that we don't know anything," Robin said, standing up and holding his hands out for quiet. "Until we know more, tossing out theories like this won't get us anywhere. Let's keep all of them on the table- yes, even the clone one- but right now our main problem is Slade himself."

"Figured you'd say that," Raven observed.

"But what can we do about Slade? We still do not know where he is or what he is planning," Starfire noted.

Robin smiled. "Maybe not, but we've finally got a lead. I got one of Cyborg's trackers on one of the robots that got away- it'll take even Slade a while to find it. That means we've got one of the robots transmitting its location to us right now."

"All right!" Cyborg said. "Knew those things would come in handy." Getting to his feet, he hurried over to the computer and began to key in commands. A map of the city was projected onto the screen, and a flashing red dot indicated the robot's current location- beneath the streets of downtown and moving steadily south.

"I don't think we'll be lucky enough that this will lead us to Slade's main headquarters," Robin told the team, "but if we're quick it just might lead us to one of the places he stashes the robots when he doesn't need them. Cyborg, can you adjust the signal so that our communicators can pick it up?"

"On it," the other Titan said. A few more keys were punched, and then he looked up at Robin and nodded. "We're ready for robot hunting."

"All right. Let's get the T-car ready. Titans, Go!"

* * *

The girl stalked through Jump City's sewer system, doing her best to ignore the smell as she held her sword drawn in one hand. She'd followed some of the fleeing robots down here, hoping to track them back to their base, but had lost sight of them and then lost herself in the unfamiliar maze. Cursing herself for a fool, she decided that she probably would have been better off getting the Titan Robin's help in tracking Slade down after all. She didn't have room in her life for friends, but that didn't mean she couldn't have useful allies. Now it was distinctly possible she wouldn't get a chance that good again.

Unknown to her, a security camera watched her progress from a nearby alcove. Computer-controlled, its primary purpose was to serve as an early warning system, assessing threats and transmitting them back to the master's lair if they met specific criteria. This girl did not seem to know where she was going, but she was armed and not one of the handful of people the primitive intelligence had been told to ignore. Assessing her likely threat level, the computer determined an appropriate response.

The sound of rumbling and metal scraping on stone sounded behind the girl. She spun to see two hidden doors opening in the sewer walls, and from them stepped a pair of combat robots- not the ones she had defeated earlier but a much taller, more powerful model, bone-white apart from their glowing red eyes. The robots did not speak- they merely lowered their weapon-hands and opened fire.

The girl darted aside, curling herself into a ball to present as small a target as possible as the energy bolts passed over her. As the robots paused to reorient themselves she jumped back up into a standing position and leaped at them, dodging their blasts and aiming for their seemingly vulnerable eyes. Bringing her sword back for a swing, she took a flying leap and brought it down, only for the blade to bounce back, vibrating in her hands. The eyes, it seemed, were too well protected- she needed to find another weak spot.

Those cables along their arms and legs ought to do nicely.

Darting behind one of the robots, she struck out with the blade and caught it along the cable. After giving an experimental yank she pulled with all her strength, and the cable tore free, sending the robot crashing to one knee. As it attempted to orient itself on her from that position, she lightly leaped in front of it and rammed her sword between the machine's head and chest. Sparks flew and the head was sent rolling- the robot twitched and lay still. Moments later, the second robot was brought down with the same tactic. That was the problem with machines, the girl thought- they could act, but not think creatively. Their loss.

She turned and looked up at the roof of the tunnel. "I can't see you, but I know you're there," she said to the hidden camera- and to the master to whom she guessed it would now be transmitting. "I have a message for you. Can you make anything of it?" Walking over to stand beside the first robot she'd felled, she brought her sword across its chest in a series of quick, precise motions. Stepping back, she looked down at the jagged letter "R" she'd carved into the metal armor.

She turned and looked back at the roof. "Watch for me," she said in a quiet, deadly voice, and then turned and continued down the tunnel. From its hiding place, the camera slowly turned to keep her in its field of vision, transmitting everything it had seen since the defeat of the robots to an increasingly interested watcher.


	4. Chapter 3: Trap

**Chapter 3: Trap**

"We're getting close," Cyborg said, holding the sensory readout screen on his arm in front of his face as he walked. "The transmitter's stopped moving- looks like we'll be coming up on Slade's base any time now."

"Finally!" Beast Boy said. "We've been walking through these old tunnels for what feels like hours- my feet are killing me! Why'd Slade have to build so far underground, anyway? Couldn't he just take off his mask and buy a house like normal people?"

"I know it's been a long walk," Robin told him, "but if we get some new info to use against Slade, it'll be worth it. And if we're lucky enough to get Slade himself…" Robin let that though hang in the air. Slade had always managed to escape and make his return before- even from beyond the grave- but if the team _could_ finally corner him, it would mean putting their single most dangerous enemy- Trigon excepted- out of the picture for good. Robin wasn't speaking from the obsessive enmity he'd once nursed- and possibly in some dark corner of his heart still did- for the masked mastermind, but from simple truth, and the others knew it.

The tunnel the Titans were walking in was part of an abandoned subway line deep beneath the city. Robin didn't know why Jump City needed a subway so far down and remote- for all he knew Slade himself had set up its construction through some dummy company he owned. Either way, though Beast Boy had probably been exaggerating about the time, they _had_ been down here awhile, and it was probably starting to get light up top. Down here, though, the only lights came from Cyborg's arm and a starbolt Starfire held balanced in the palm of one hand. The team was clustered around both lights, except for Raven, who kept to the shadows (though the half-demon could probably see in the dark just fine).

Finally Cyborg stopped and held up one hand. "Is something wrong?" Starfire asked him.

"No," he said, and pointed at the wall. "Signal goes right through there- the robot's on the other side, and it's stopped, so whatever Slade's working on is probably back there too. There's got to be a way in- we just need to find it."

The Titans spread out, running their hands along the wall. Finally Beast Boy spoke up. "Cy! There's something over here!" he called out. "I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it feels an awful lot like a control panel."

"On it." Cyborg hurried over and let his light shine on what indeed turned out to be unmistakably a control panel. He held up his free hand in front of it, and a cable snaked out and plugged itself into a socket at the panel's base. Cyborg's expression went blank as his mind interfaced with the device. Finally the cable retracted and he nodded once, and an entire section of the wall opened up.

"All right, team," Robin said. "Let's do this." He pulled a small metal cylinder from his belt, which extended into a fighting staff he whirled once over his head and then held out in front of him. A brightly glowing starbolt formed around each of Starfire's hands, and Cyborg's right arm reconfigured itself into his sonic cannon. Beast Boy dropped to all fours and came up again a snarling tiger, while Raven's eyes burned white and shadows gathered around her. Robin looked around at his friends and smiled. "Titans, GO!"

The team charged through the door and down a hallway… into an empty room.

It certainly had the look of a high-tech base- the walls were smooth, spotless steel, and a blank viewscreen was built into one wall- but it was completely lacking in either occupants or machinery. None of the robots were in sight, and there was certainly no sign of Slade himself.

"Dude," Beast Boy said, shifting back to his human form, "did we get the wrong address by mistake or something?"

Cyborg shook his head. "Not according to my sensors. I'm still picking up the reading from that tracer Robin planted- in fact, the readings say it's in the room with us right now, but I don't think that can be right."

"It is," Raven said. She held out her hand and something small leapt up from the center of the room and zoomed directly into it. The other Titans all turned to look as she opened her fist, revealing one of Cyborg's tracers lying on her palm. "Slade knew about the tracer the whole time. We've been tricked."

"No!" Robin said, a sinking feeling spreading through his gut. It was possible Slade simply brought them here as part of a wild goose chase for his own amusement, but he doubted it. Slade was cruel, but he never let his cruelty completely dominate his actions, and his plans never served only a single purpose. "We need to get out of here, now!"

The Titans turned back towards the door, but before they could take more than a few steps forward it slammed shut and began to pulse with a shimmering force-field- Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire could probably between them still take it down, but it would take time- more time, probably, than they had.

Robin heard the sound of static behind him and turned to face the viewscreen as it crackled to life. What had been blank and silvery now displayed a shadowed room dominated by a face concealed behind a familiar one-eyed mask, and though no expression could be seen, that single eye seemed to convey as always cruel amusement. "Slade." Robin spat the name.

"Robin," the criminal mastermind replied in his cool, toneless voice. "How nice to see you again. It's really been too long- I've been waiting for you."

"It'd be better if we could meet face to face and finish this!" Robin said, leveling his staff at the image.

Slade ignored him, turning his attention to Cyborg. "Your tracker really was quite an advanced design, by the way- I was impressed. Unfortunately, you seem to have underestimated my own technical abilities. Did you really think you could slip such a thing onto one of my robots without my knowledge? But I must confess, it did give me the opportunity to finally execute this most wonderful trap."

The terrible eye turned back to Robin. "You said you wanted to finish this, Robin? Tonight it ends. I really have enjoyed our little games, but I'm simply afraid I cannot tolerate your interference any longer. Things are in motion now that I will not allow you to disrupt. Had you joined me when I offered you the chance you might have survived, but alas, that was not to be. Tonight it ends, Titans- for you, at least; not for me. Good-bye." The screen flickered again, and went dark.

"So _stupid_!" Robin shouted as the image vanished, slamming his staff into the ground. "I should have seen something like this coming- should have known Slade wouldn't let himself get caught that easily."

"Cheer up, man," Cyborg said. "You were just doing what we're supposed to- chasin' the bad guy. If anyone screwed up, it's me- I should have worked harder on making those trackers hard to find."

"Cyborg is right," Starfire said, putting a hand on Robin's shoulder. "The fault is not yours. Now then, let us get out of this trap!" Pulling away from him, she raised her hand and fired a starbolt directly at the door. It struck the force-field and was repelled, and the Titans were forced to duck as it bounced back and forth against the walls before finally dissipating. "Perhaps that was not the best idea," Starifre admitted.

"I think we can still get through it, if we work at it," Cyborg said. "I can probably disable the field. You'd think Slade would've realized that trapping us in a room really would do the trick."

"He did," Raven said. "We've got bigger problems than a locked door. Look up!" The team did so, and they saw that a series of vents that had previously been hidden on the ceiling had now opened up, and clouds of billowing green smoke were pouring from them.

* * *

The girl raced along Jump City's rooftops, pausing only so she could leap the gaps between them. Finally she stopped on one that gave her a good vantage point over the waterfront and looked out over the bay at Titans' Tower. She briefly considered finding her way over there and trying again to make contact- an alliance with the local heroes could, after all, be a very useful thing- but she decided against it. Their security systems would probably tear her to shreds before she even got a chance to talk to them, and the windows were dark anyway- either they weren't home, or they were asleep. At that thought, the girl glanced up at the sky and saw that it was starting to lighten around the edges- it was later than she'd thought, and she probably needed to sleep herself.

"Another night, then," she whispered. Hurrying to the edge of the roof, she found a rickety metal ladder and quickly slipped down to street level, or rather, alley level. She turned to head towards the main street the alley connected to when she heard a quiet chuckle from behind her.

"Well, well," a young-sounding male voice said. "You're pretty good, if what you did to the boss's robots is anything to go by, but all that did was make him mad- that and using his mask. Now I've caught up to you, and you're not getting away."

The girl spun to face the voice, drawing her sword and dropping into a crouch. The speaker was a boy a few years older than her, from what she could see of him, wearing a black (or possibly dark blue- it was hard to tell in this light) uniform and cowl. He balanced a beam pistol lightly in one hand, and two larger guns were strapped to his back. On his chest, just above his heart, was a metal badge bearing a stylized S.

"Slade," the girl said, recognizing the symbol. "You're his current attack dog, I take it? Tell me where he is, and I'll go easy on you."

"You'll go easy on me?" the boy laughed. "Who do you think you are, girl?"

She smiled tightly, though her mask meant he couldn't see. "They call me 'Ravager'. That mean anything to you?"

"Sounds to me like you're a kid trying to sound tough, with a name like that," he said. "Drop the sword and take off the mask and this'll go easy for you. Slade doesn't want you dead yet- he just wants to know who you are and why you're wearing a copy of his mask."

"I'll tell him myself, on my own terms- not his, not yours. Now let's finish this." He brought the gun up to fire, but Ravager had already darted out of his line of fire and was lunging towards him, weapon raised. Before she could strike, though, he spun away quicker than the eye could follow and she stumbled to reorient on him.

"Well," she muttered under her breath, "this might be interesting after all."

AN: Slade's new apprentice is an OC, but his appearance and abilities (heightened strength, reflexes, and combat skills) are based off of those of Grant Wilson, one of Slade's sons from the comics. I thought this fit with how Slade is portrayed in the show as being, in his own warped way, a dark father-figure for his apprentices.


	5. Chapter 4: Imperfection

**Chapter 4: Imperfection**

"Oh, man," Beast Boy moaned as the green gas spilled into the room. "Not good! Not good!"

"Cyborg," Robin called out, "any idea what that stuff is?"

"Let's see here," Cyborg said, raising his arm in front of his face and activating the scanner on it. He watched the readings intently for a few moments and then looked back up at Robin, expression grim. "It's not good, man. I'm not sure what this stuff is- probably something special of Slade's- but there's enough toxins in it to take out a whole city block. I can't speak for Raven or Starfire, since they're not human, but if you, me, or BB took one breath of this stuff, we'd keel over in a minute."

"We're all gonna die!" Beast Boy shouted, collapsing to his knees and staring up at the descending smoke. "We're gonna breathe in funny smoke and then we're all gonna die!"

Robin spun towards him. "Nobody's going to die," he said firmly. "We need to think. Force won't work to get us out of this, at least not quick enough- but there's got to be a way. Nobody's traps are perfect- not even Slade's. There's got to be something he overlooked."

"There is." Raven's voice was calm and cool even "Everybody, gather around me now, and hold your breaths!"

The Titans did as she instructed as the poison gas began to swirl around them. Though he was holding his breath, Robin could feel his eyes beginning to sting as Raven took a seated position in midair, eyes closed. "Azarath, metrion, ZINTHOS!" she said in a powerful voice, and when her eyes snapped open they were glowing a brilliant white. Then shadows swirled around the team, and Robin felt himself yanked down what felt like an endless black tunnel filled with icy, biting wind.

He tumbled to the ground in a painful heap, and judging from the sounds his friends had landed nearby. Groaning loudly, Robin sat up and looked around to find that the gleaming walls of Slade's trap were gone, replaced by what looked like a deserted alleyway. Along it, the other Titans were also getting back up, rubbing heads and wincing.

Beast Boy looked around and then smiled broadly. "We didn't die!" he shouted, and promptly hugged Raven, who wasted no time in extricating herself from his embrace. The sorceress stumbled away from him and steadied herself against the nearby wall.

"Are you all right?" Robin asked her.

"I'll be fine," she replied. "Teleporting through several hundred feet of solid concrete when you don't know where you're going and have to hold your breath isn't easy, though. But you were right- there was a hole in Slade's trap."

"Magic," Robin said, nodding. "Without Trigon to back him up or an artifact like the Ring of Azar, he can't use it, which means he can't shield himself from it. Good thinking."

"Thanks. Now, can we please go back to the Tower? After that, I could _really_ use a nap." Raven certainly looked tired, with her head hanging and her hood partially covering her face.

"Something I could definitely go for," he agreed. "Cyborg, can you find where we left the T-car from here?"

"Sure can," Cyborg said. "Shouldn't be far- I think some of the buildings out there look pretty familiar. My sensors ought to be able to pick it up from here. After everything that baby's been through, I'm taking no chances with losing it." Turning, he walked out of the alley, the other Titans following close behind.

Robin fell to the rear of the line, head bowed and lost in dark thoughts. He came back to himself at the touch of a soft hand on his arm. "Robin?" Starfire asked. "Are you… all right?"

"We almost died tonight, Star," he said quietly. "Slade set that trap, and I led us right into it. Not only did we barely make it out alive, but now we've lost our only lead on him- and from the way he sounded, he's up to something big. If we don't stop him, who knows how many people he'll hurt?"

"It is not your fault, Robin," Starfire told him. "Slade is clever, but if we stand with each other he cannot defeat us. Slade may be alone, Robin, but you are not. You have friends. Don't be so hard on yourself when it is not your fault. If you are, I think it is what Slade wants."

Robin turned his head and smiled at her. "Thanks a lot, Starfire. I'm lucky to have you here to keep me thinking straight- we all are."

She smiled broadly at that, and that somehow managed to make things better, just a little.

* * *

Ravager spun away from Slade's apprentice as he opened fire on her. She managed to catch and reflect some of his energy blasts on the silvery blade of her sword, but a couple managed to strike her along the arm and leg, burning holes in her sleeve and scorching the skin. Lunging forward, she caught the hand that held his gun with a flying kick, sending the weapon spinning off into the shadows of the alley, but quicker than the eye could follow his hand caught her ankle and jerked her off her feet. Gritting her teeth, she kicked directly into his face with all her strength, and was rewarded with a pained shout as he let her go. She scrambled back to her feet and turned to see him wiping blood off his lip and glaring at her murderously.

"You're fast, I'll give you that," she allowed. "Why work for Slade, anyway? What's he got on you?"

"Got on me?" The young man laughed. "Slade saved my life. An organization called the HIVE experimented on me, trying to make a super-soldier- you said yourself I'm fast- but something went wrong, and I was dying. They gave me up as a lost cause, but Slade found me and saved my life. That's why I run his errands for him."

_Clever_, Ravager thought. _Why blackmail someone when you could just put them in your debt? I'll have to remember that one- might come in handy someday._ "So what do you call yourself, anyway?" was what she actually said out loud.

The boy smirked. "Like I'd tell you that. Slade calls me the weapon in his hand- that's enough."

"And you thought _my_ name was bad?" she asked. "Well, I need a name for you, so come on _Sharpshot_, still think you can take me?"

"I know I can." Grabbing one of the larger guns from across his back, he had it drawn and leveled in a heartbeat. A thick beam of violet light lanced from the end, and Ravager was forced to jump back and to the side to avoid it. This, she decided, wouldn't do at all. Raising her sword and taking careful aim, she threw the blade in a straight, unerring line that would take the gun through the powerpack. Sharpshot managed to pull back in time that only the barrel was sliced, but he still hurled the weapon away from him to lay, smoking, on the alley pavement.

In an instant Ravager was on him, striking with all the ferocity that streetfighting skills and the martial arts classes she'd scraped the money together for lent her. He wasn't as good- she doubted he shared her intense practice routine- but his enhanced speed and strength balanced that out, allowing him to block every one of her blows. Finally she somersaulted back from him and landed in a crouch.

"Giving up?" he taunted. "I'm just getting started."

"No- you're just getting _finished_," Ravager hissed, pulling a small capsule from her belt. It was only one of a handful she'd managed to steel, and she hated to waste it, but she was not about to lose to this jumped-up idiot. Breathing in deep, she hurled the capsule at him and watched as it exploded into a cloud of gas. From inside the cloud she could hear Sharpshot coughing, and then a thud as he hit the ground, out cold.

Ravager let her breath out and stalked towards him, debating what to do. She could drag him with her to grill him about Slade after he woke up, but from what she'd seen he wasn't going to talk, and she didn't want to give him another chance to attack her- but she also didn't know how long the knock-out gas would hold someone with an enhanced body, and didn't want to run the risk of his finding her. She doubted the trick with the gas would work a second time.

Finally, she simply stripped the remaining gun off his back (striking him over the head with it once for good measure) and sliced it in two with her sword. Dragging him down the alley, she found a convenient dumpster to stash him in and closed the lid behind him. There- he'd likely be out for a while now, and he'd wake up disoriented, unarmed, and surrounded by garbage. Chances of him being able to successfully follow her now were slim.

Brushing her hands off, Ravager surveyed her handiwork and nodded, and then turned to leave the alley and make her way back to her motel room. She was going to need a good days sleep, because tomorrow was looking to be another busy night.


	6. Chapter 5: The Best Laid Plans

**Chapter 5: The Best-Laid Plans…**

The apprentice stood before his master's chair, cowl lowered and head bowed. He could _feel_ Slade's single eye boring into him, as if it could see into the very depths of his soul, and he shivered at the thought of it. He had failed in the mission that his master had set him, and while Slade rarely lost his temper, when he did it was terrible. More than that, the apprentice wanted to make his master proud- wanted to be _like_ him, ever since the day when Slade had saved him from the HIVE and he saw for the first time what a _true_ warrior was capable of.

Finally, the silence was broken. "Look at me," Slade said, his voice smooth and deadly.

The apprentice raised his head and met his master's unblinking gaze. "I failed you," he said. "I let the girl get away from me- I have no excuse. I'm sorry."

"_Don't_ apologize," Slade hissed at him. "You failed, and you accept responsibility for your failure- that is good. It will be the fire that will make certain you do not make the same mistake twice. But do not wallow in self-pity- it only weakens you, and I have no desire to hear it.

"I understand, Master," the apprentice said. "Do you want me to go after her again tonight?"

Slade shook his head. "No. I have a different task in mind for you, my apprentice. Come." He rose from his chair and crossed to the far wall of the room, which was lined with monitors, his apprentice following him. Slade typed briefly into a panel at the base of one of the monitors, and images appeared on them- a research lab belonging to one of the city's major corporations, and a device that resembled a satellite dish, though it was made of no material that the apprentice recognized.

"I require this item for my plans to succeed," Slade said. "You will fetch it for me. You may take a squad of my robots with you if you feel you will require assistance." _Don't fail me again_. He didn't say the words, but they hung menacingly in the air all the same.

"Yes, Master. You'll have it by tonight- I promise you." The apprentice paused, considering whether or not to say what was hovering on the end of his tongue. Slade did not take well to questioning- if he wanted you to know something, he would tell you directly without prompting, and if he didn't the only answer he was liable to give was a painful one. But the apprentice needed to know. "But if I'm getting this, then what will happen with the girl Ravager?"

Slade turned slowly to face him, and the apprentice once again felt the awful weight of the will behind that one unblinking eye bearing down on him. "I will handle that matter _myself_."

* * *

Robin didn't know how long he slept in the next morning, after the stress and excitement last night had brought. Groaning as he pulled himself out of bed, he glanced over at his clock and saw that it was already past noon. His stomach was growling as he got up and pulled on his costume and mask, and part of him idly wondered exactly what you called the first meal of the day when you ate it at 2:00 in the afternoon.

In the living room, he found that Cyborg and Raven were the only two other Titans in sight. The half-robotic tech genius seemed to have taken Beast Boy's absence as his cue to eat as much meat without pestering as he could, if the large plate of bacon, ham and sausages he'd set out in front of him was any indication. Raven sat off to the side, leafing intently through a thick, black-bound book and seemed oblivious to anything going on around her. Robin paused in the doorway and couldn't help but give a little smile.

A hand rested gently on his shoulder, and Robin turned to see Starfire. "You look well this morn- this afternoon," she said. "Did you decide to stop worrying about what happened last night?"

He smiled at her. "Yeah. It's in the past, and we got out, and I won't make that mistake again. Thanks for helping me straighten that out."

"You are most welcome!" Starfire said happily, clapping her hands together and returning his smile with one of her own. "Then if you are well, I think I shall find what food we have available for this late breakfast." Leaping lightly into the air, she glided across the room towards the fridge.

Robin followed after her and got a couple of pieces of toast and some jam for himself, keeping his eyes averted as much as possible (as much as he liked Starfire, her digestive system was decidedly not human and dwelling on the sort of things she liked to eat hardly did wonders for one's own appetite). Breakfast in hand, he sat himself down in front of the main computer and began to scan news stories, police reports, and anything else that might show if Slade had been up to anything while the Titans had been asleep. Nothing he found, however, reported sightings of the robots since last night, and certainly not of Slade himself. Robin wasn't surprised. The criminal mastermind preferred the cover of night for his actions, concealing them in darkness.

"Found anything?" a quiet voice asked from behind him, and Robin turned to see Raven standing there, book tucked under one arm.

He shook his head. "No. If Slade _did_ do anything today, he kept it under wraps. That's the problem with fighting him- he's not like the Joker, or even Brother Blood, who make everything into a big spectacle. He doesn't give us anything he doesn't want us to know."

"He'll slip up," Raven said. "Slade's clever, but he's only human. In the end, he's always made mistakes before, and that's how we were able to get him."

"I know. It's just hard waiting for that slip-up to happen, and who knows how many people he'll hurt before it does?" Robin sighed and turned back to the screen. "We need more information."

The sound of chaos from behind them echoed through the room, and Robin didn't need to turn to know that Beast Boy had finally showed up and was attempting to scrounge together as much tofu as possible. Raven grimaced and drifted off towards the edge of the room to find as much peace and quiet as she could, leaving Robin alone by the console. He sat there and finished his toast while waiting for the noise to die down- trying to get either Beast Boy or Cyborg to listen to anything during a meal, he'd learned from experience, was a losing battle- and then stood and faced the team.

"Slade got the better of us last night," he said, "but we're still here, and we won't let ourselves get tricked so easily again. Now it's our turn to go after him."

"What've you got in mind?" Cyborg asked. "I gotta admit, I'm looking forward to taking him down myself. _Nobody_ outsmarts my tech and gets away with it."

"Whatever Slade's robots were after at the warehouse last night, they didn't get it," Robin said. "That means they'll be out looking for it again, which gives us a chance to figure out what it is they're trying to get their hands on- and to figure out what Slade is planning. We need to scout the city until we find out what it is, and keep them from getting it."

"Spy mission?" Beast Boy asked, a devious expression- or at least, an expression he clearly thought was devious- on his face. "Count me in."

Robin looked at each of his friends in turn. "Raven, Starfire, and Beast Boy, I'll need you to search the skies. Cyborg, I want you to go to the major tech companies and see if they've lost anything lately. I'm going back to the warehouse where I fought the robots last night, see if I can find anything new. If any of you see Slade's robots, call for back-up but don't fight them. If they're trying to lure us into another trap, we need everything we've got to fight it."

"What about that girl you met last night?" Raven asked. "What happens if one of us runs into her?"

"I don't know," Robin admitted. "We'll have to work that one out on the fly. All right then- Titans, GO!"

* * *

Robin stopped his motorcycle outside the warehouse door and hung his helmet from one of the handlebars. Extending his staff to its full length, he held it lightly in one hand as he made his way inside the building, looking around. Everything still seemed to be a mess from the fight- either whoever owned the place was smart enough not to want to mess with a crime scene or lazy enough not to care- and he knelt beside a broken crate to look inside it. The contents seemed to be several high powered beam weapons, similar to the ones he'd seen the robots use, but smaller, and all fortunately powered off.

"What are you planning?" he asked the air quietly.

"I thought I might find you here," a voice said from behind him. Robin spun to find himself face to face with the mysterious girl who'd helped him fight the robots; the sinking sunlight that filtered through the broken roof glinted off her mask.

"Who are you?" Robin asked her, relaxing somewhat but not lowering his guard completely.

She shrugged. "My real name wouldn't mean anything to you. You can call me 'Ravager'."

Robin frowned- in his experience, the sort of person who'd choose to be known by a name like that wasn't the sort he'd want as a friend, or even an ally. "Why did you run off last night after helping me?" he finally asked.

The girl- Ravager- shook her head. "I'm not a team player, Robin- not like you and your friends. There's something I have to do, and I didn't want anyone else getting in my way. Then I thought about it, and I realized that you Titans want to take Slade down, and… so do I." Robin didn't miss the pause in her voice, and he knew that what he'd just heard was far from the whole story. There was a missing piece here that would make this all make sense, but from where he stood right now he couldn't figure out what it was.

Ravager looked at him intently through her mask's eye hole. "I realized that maybe we can help each other," she finished.

"If you're Slade's enemy, why wear that mask?" Robin said.

"I have my reasons- I'd rather not share them," she said. "Now do you want my help, or not?"

"That depends. What kind of help are you talking about?" Robin found himself wanting to trust this girl, but something held him back. There was something about her that made him uneasy, and it was more than just the too-familiar mask.

She drew the sword from its sheath on her back in a single fluid motion and brought it through a series of swift, precise moves. "I can fight- you know that much. I've also got information that you don't. Did you know, for example, that Slade has a new apprentice?"

"No!" Robin hissed, his gut twisting. A new apprentice made Slade that much more formidable, but it also probably meant that some other innocent had been caught in the psychopath's twisted web.

"Yes," Ravager said. "I ran into him last night- seems Slade sent him after me himself. He was good- and more than that, he was _fast_; he said he'd been genetically enhanced and I'd believe it. He was cocky too, though, and I left him unconscious in a dumpster, but I don't think he'll make that mistake again."

"Who was he?"

She shrugged again. "No idea- I called him Sharpshot because of all the guns he had on him, but he wouldn't tell me his real name. So tell me- that information good enough for you?"

Robin opened his mouth to respond, but before he could his communicator rang loudly. Opening it up, he saw Cyborg's face staring up at him. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Big trouble- with a capital S," he said. "I need backup now- I'm sending you the coordinates."

"On my way," Robin said, snapping the communicator shut. He looked up at Ravager. "I've got to run," he told her. "A friend needs help." He turned and dashed out of warehouse and leapt onto his motorcycle. Before he could even put the helmet on, however, he heard someone else jump onto the cycle behind him and felt two arms wrap around his torso.

"I heard what your teammate said," Ravager's voice hissed in his ear. "And if you have Slade troubles, I'm coming with you."

Robin nodded and got ready to start up his engine, wondering again as he did so what it was about this mysterious person that put him so ill at ease.


	7. Chapter 6: Misconception and Deceit

**Chapter 6: Misconception and Deceit**

Robin could see the explosions blossoming around the tech-center Cyborg's signal had come from, and he knew that even though he'd told the other Titans not to directly engage Slade's forces, something must have happened to force his hand. Dodging around traffic, he forced as much speed from the R-cycle as he could- if what was going down was as big as it looked like, Cyborg was going to need all the help he could get.

A particularly bright flash shot up from near the building; Robin was fortunate that his helmet's visor shielded his eyes from the worst of it. "Well," Ravager said over his shoulder, "that doesn't look good."

"It doesn't," Robin agreed. "Are you ready to fight the moment we get there? Because it looks like you'll need to."

"Count on it."

The cycle rounded the final corner, and Robin saw the scene of battle. Cyborg was crouched behind a large chunk of fallen rubble, firing over it with his sonic cannon at a small group of Slade's robots, who were firing back in turn with their small beam weapons. Pulling the bike to a sudden stop, Robin leapt off it, drawing his staff in midair. He came down amid the robots and spun the weapon, smashing into the head of one of the machines and forcing the others back. One of them raised its weapon and leveled it at him, but stopped suddenly, jerking, with the point of a sword protruding from its chest. It collapsed, and Ravager casually yanked her blade out of it. The other robots backed off, perhaps assessing the changed situation or receiving new orders- Robin had never been quite sure how intelligent the things actually were.

"Thanks for the assist," he said to Ravager, who nodded. Then he turned to Cyborg. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine!" the other Titan shouted. "I can handle the rest of these, but there's more of them and they got into the building while these had me pinned down. There was someone with them who looked pretty flesh-and-blood, too."

"Sharpshot," Ravager hissed. At the sound of her voice, Cyborg turned to look at her, doing a double-take when he saw the mask.

"Let me guess- you're the mystery girl who helped Robin out last night?"

She inclined her head, one visible eye sweeping over Cyborg in a coolly appraising manner that put Robin uncomfortably in mind of Slade. "You'd be guessing right. Call me Ravager. And the person with the robots is Slade's new apprentice- I call him Sharpshot."

"Ravager, huh?" Cyborg asked, meeting the girl's gaze. "And if Slade's got a new apprentice, that's- oh no you don't!" Raising his hand, he quickly converted it into cannon form again and let loose directly over Robin and Ravager's heads. Both ducked and then spun to see the two robots that remained collapsing, their faces reduced to smoldering wreckage.

"I thought they'd retreated," Robin said, brushing his cape off.

"They didn't have their weapons out- I think they were tryin' to spy on us," Cyborg said. "Probably why they shut down to begin with. I bet Slade wants to know more about someone before attacking-"

"And based on his little performance last night, it's probably not us," Robin finished. He turned to Ravager. "That leaves you. Any particular reason you know that Slade would be interested in you?"

"Besides stealing his look," Cyborg added.

"I don't know," Ravager said slowly, and Robin recognized it for the evasive non-answer that it was. "But I can tell you that he's interested in something in that building, and that if we stand around here talking all night, he'll get away with it." She turned and began to stalk towards the building's steps. "You guys coming or not?"

Robin and Cyborg nodded at each other and turned to follow her. "She's right about whatever Slade wants being most important," Robin said to his friend in a quiet voice, "but bringing it up just now seems a little too smooth. There's something she doesn't want us to know."

"I hear you, man," Cyborg replied. "So, do we trust her or not?"

"For the moment, I trust her to not sell us out to Slade and help us fight him. Beyond that? I don't know."

Suddenly the doors above them exploded into a hail of laser fire. Cyborg brought up his armored arms to shield himself and prepared his sonic cannon to fire back, while Robin dropped into a roll beneath the beams and came up with a birdarang in each hand. Looking up the steps, he saw four more of the robots standing there, weapons firing and flanking a young man who looked a little older than Robin himself, wearing a dark uniform with a cowl up and with two large guns in his hands. Propelling himself into a flying leap, the leader of the Titans brought up his weapons and sent them hurling towards the boy, who he guessed had to be Slade's new apprentice. Sharpshot, for lack of a better name, simply smiled at him and brought his guns up, picking both birdarangs from midair with an almost playful ease. Robin knew that someone with enough training could accomplish that feat, but Sharpshot seemed to young and his skill too casual for that. Ravager was right- for whatever reason, his reflexes were superhumanly quick.

Robin landed lightly in front of Sharpshot, switching out birdarangs for his staff. Nearby, two of the robots were dueling Ravager while a third was in a firefight with Cyborg; the fourth swerved to aid the apprentice but he waved it off. "Robin," he said lightly. "Slade's told me so much about you. It's good to meet you at last- before you go down."

"Someone's going down tonight, but it's not going to be me," Robin said. Sharpshot grinned at him and opened fire with both his guns; Robin met the barrage by spinning his staff, allowing the highly durable metal to absorb the punishment intended for its wielder. One stray shot got through and grazed Robin's shoulder, a testament to his opponent's skill; otherwise he was unharmed. Then he lunged forward himself, catching one of Sharpshot's hands with a flying kick and knocking the gun out of it. Stumbling back, the apprentice growled angrily and cast his other weapon aside before drawing a long-bladed knife that pulsed with electricity around the edges. Both melee weapons met with sparks flying as the two warriors traded strikes and parries- Robin was the more skilled of the two, but he was matched by Sharpshot's uncanny speed and enhanced strength. Looking at his enemy closely for the first time, Robin saw that he had a package strapped tightly to his back- probably whatever Slade wanted him to steal.

From the side came the sound of successive explosions, and Robin guessed that Cyborg and Ravager had finished off their own opponents. Sharpshot suddenly backed off, and Robin looked off to the side to see Cyborg holding his sonic cannon leveled at him. The apprentice stopped moving, however, when he bumped into the point of Ravager's blade, now held against his back. Robin advanced on him, staff at the ready.

"There's nowhere to run now," Cyborg said.

"So talk," Ravager added, giving him a poke with her sword.

"What does Slade want here?" Robin asked.

Sharpshot only smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know? But I'm not about to give up just yet!" Spinning around too quickly for Robin's eye to follow, he seized Ravager by her arm and yanked her off her feet, sending her spinning towards Cyborg. The half-robot tried to dodge away, but not before she slammed directly into him, sending them both sprawling. Before Robin could react, Sharpshot kicked out with one leg, knocking Robin's own legs out from under him and sending him to the ground. Looking up, he saw the apprentice standing over him, a pistol drawn and pointed at him.

"Now who's ready to give up?" he asked.

"Not me!" Robin shouted, leaping to his feet and slamming into Sharpshot before he had time to get a shot off. The gun was sent flying as the two struggled, but finally Sharpshot planted his feet and threw Robin off to one side. The Titan leader pulled himself back to his feet, rudding his head and watching the apprentice approach.

Suddenly someone else slammed into him from the side. "Get down!" he heard Ravager's voice hiss in his ear, and then the night was lit up with a hail of green starbolts. Robin looked up to see Starfire shooting straight for Slade's apprentice, beams of energy blasting from her hands. Covering his face, he pulled out one of his remaining guns and tried to fire at her, but before he could a cloud of shadow wrapped about it, yanking it from his hand and sending it hurling off into the distance as Raven descended, hands extended and eyes glowing. Beside her, a green falcon came to hover a few feet above the ground before morphing into a Velociraptor that spat and bared its fangs menacingly.

Sharpshot looked around himself at the Titans and raised his hands. "All right, all right," he said. "I know when I'm outmatched." His expression suddenly shifted to a fierce grin. "But that doesn't mean this is over." Opening the fingers of one hand, he hurled a handful of small grey pellets to the ground, where they exploded into a cloud of thick, grey smoke.

"Raven!" Robin called, coughing and trying to keep his mouth covered, "the package on his back- get it!" He could barely make out the swirling of darkness as she followed his instruction, but when the smoke cleared, though Sharpshot was gone, the package he'd been carrying rested in Raven's hands.

Robin pulled himself away from Ravager and stood up, hurrying over to his team. "Is everyone all right?" he asked, relieved to see nods and hear various sounds of affirmation. Taking the package from Raven, he laid it down on the ground and quickly unwrapped it, revealing a miniaturized- and very advanced- laser cannon.

"Dude," Beast Boy asked, shifting back into human form, "is that the gizmo Slade's goon there was after?"

"I think so," Robin said. "Another weapon. It looks like Slade is building an army and outfitting them with the best. I don't know why, but I do know Slade, and I doubt it's for keeping the peace."

"I can run some tests on the thing if you like," Cyborg said, "find out what its capabilities are, maybe see why Slade wanted it."

"Robin," Starfire said suddenly, her voice strangely cool, "I also have a query for you."

"What do you want to know, Star?"

She turned in midair and looked pointedly behind him, and Robin followed her gaze to see where Ravager stood off away from the Titans. "Who is that girl, Robin?" Starfire asked. "And why, when I arrived, was she holding on to you?"

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

The apprentice stopped didn't stop running until the tech center was far behind him, and then he paused to activate the communicator ear bud he wore. "Report," Slade's cold voice said. "How went the mission?"

The apprentice smiled. "Perfectly. The Titans all showed up, and mystery girl was there too, but they all think we wanted the weapon. It'll be awhile before they look around inside and find where the big robots tunneled in and took the signal array, and by then it'll be too late to follow them."

"Excellent." There was a note of triumph in the master's voice. "Everything proceeds according to plan."


	8. Chapter 7: More Clues, No Answers

**Chapter 7: More Clues, No Answers**

Robin supposed that there were times in his life that he'd felt more awkward than he did now, but at the moment he couldn't for the life of him recall any of them. To one side Starfire hovered about a foot off the ground, arms crossed and green gaze icy. To the other Ravager stood back in a similar, albeit grounded, position, her one visible eye running over the Tamaranean princess appraisingly. The rest of the Titans were watching to one side, but that was a fact Robin only barely registered compared to the two girls who seemed about ready to attack either each other or him.

"Well, Robin?" Starfire said. "You have not answered."

"What's the matter?" Ravager asked mildly. "Not jealous, are we?"

Finally, Robin managed to find his voice. "It's not like that!" he said. "She was just trying to help cover me during the fight, Starfire- there's nothing remotely personal going on, I promise! I just met her last night!"

Starfire drifted to the ground and uncrossed her arms. "I understand, Robin- you make good points." She turned to glare at Ravager. "But I still am not certain I trust _her_."

"On what basis? It still looks like jealousy to me," Ravager said, shaking her head. "I'm disappointed. I thought that a Teen Titan would be above such petty foibles."

Starfire's eyes flared green, and she crouched as if she was about to jump at Ravager. Robin darted between them and held up his hands, aware as he did so that if he said the wrong thing he was in an excellent position to get struck from both sides. "Calm down, both of you! Starfire, she's after Slade the same as we are, and this isn't a time to fight. And you, Ravager, if you keep trying to pick fights with my friends, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I may not want to see you get hurt, but I'm not siding with you over them either."

Ravager held up her hands and backed up. "All right, sorry, didn't mean for you to take it like that. I'm just not used to dealing with… other people."

"_That_ is obvious," said Starfire.

"So I take it this is the girl who helped you out last night?" Raven asked.

"Yeah," Robin said. "Her name's Ravager, and she says she wants to fight Slade, but she won't say why. She's good in a fight, though."

"Wait, wait a minute," Beast Boy said, looking at Ravager. "You want to fight Slade, but you dress just like him? I don't get it."

"I've got my reasons, believe me," the girl said. "Sorry if I don't feel like sharing them. In any case, I'm not sticking around to be grilled about my life. I'm going to go see if I can catch up to Sharpshot. If I wind up needing help- well, I know how to find you." Spinning around, she darted off into the shadows and was gone.

"Well, that was weird," Cyborg observed. "I don't think she's working for Slade, unless he's got some sort of really screwed-up scheme going this time, but I'm not sure I know what to make of her either."

"Neither do I, and I don't like it," Raven said. "She's hiding something, maybe a lot of somethings, and I don't think that's a very good sign, especially considering how obsessed she seems to be otherwise." She looked pointedly at Robin as she said that- between the two of them, they knew more about dangerous secrets and obsessions than anyone else on the team.

"Not to mention Ravager sounds like a bad guy name," Beast Boy put in.

"So what do you wish us to do, Robin?" Starfire asked. Her tone was still somewhat cool, though at least she didn't seem overtly angry anymore- or more likely, she'd decided to direct future hostility at Ravager rather than Robin.

The leader of the Titans sighed and looked up at his friends. "For now, we focus on Slade. We know he's dangerous, and so far Ravager hasn't actually threatened anyone who wasn't working for him. He's out top priority; if it turns out she's dangerous we'll do what we have to then, and if it doesn't, we don't want to start a pointless feud."

He turned to Cyborg. "I want you to analyze that gun, see why Slade wanted it bad enough to send an apprentice for it. The rest of us are going to investigate the building and see if he took anything else."

"Sounds like a plan," Cyborg said. Robin handed him the weapon and he sat down at the edge of the sidewalk, unfurling a series of cables from his mechanical parts that interfaced directly with it. Motioning to the other Titans, Robin lead them into the building.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

An hour later, Robin sighed as he paced in the tech center's lobby. He, Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy had split up, each searching one of the floors along with a researcher to tell them if anything was out of place, and apart from the single beam gun missing from the weapons department, he'd turned up nothing. The other Titans weren't done searching yet, but they hadn't found any noteworthy evidence either or they would have called on the communicator. This was looking like it was going to turn into another dead end.

He heard the door open and turned to see Cyborg enter, holding the beam weapon in one hand. "Did you find anything?" Robin asked.

Cyborg shook his head. "Nothing all that special. It's an advanced design- very efficient, and it'll get a beam powerful enough to punch through just about any armor, but I'd think Slade has the tech to make something like this himself if he wanted to. I don't get why it's so important to him."

"Man," Robin growled, hitting his fist into his palm. "I thought we'd at least be able to find-" he was cut off as his communicator rang loudly. Flipping it open, he saw Beast Boy's face- the shapeshifter's eyes were wide.

"What did you find?" Robin asked.

"Dude, I think you'd better see this for yourself."

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Robin and Cyborg entered the storage room in the tech center's basement, followed closely by Starfire and Raven. The room was empty, but the floor was dominated by a huge hole, and both Beast Boy and a white-coated scientist were staring into it.

"What happened here?" Robin asked.

"We don't know," the scientist said. "Our security cameras went down when the robots attacked, and they're not back up yet. We don't have any footage of what actually went on here, but the, ah, item that we were storing has obviously been… stolen."

"I tried to follow the tunnel before you guys got here," Beast Boy said, "but I didn't get far- whoever did it started collapsing it after they'd past once it leveled out, and not even a mouse could get through all the rock down there- and trust me, and know that from experience."

"Slade," Robin muttered, staring down into the sloping tunnel. "This must have been what he was really after- whatever was being stored in this room. "Sharpshot, the gun- they were just distractions. I should have guessed."

"But what _was_ it that Slade went to such trickery to get?" Starfire asked.

"I don't know," Robin said. He turned to the scientist. "But I bet he does."

The man backed up, holding up his hands. "I can't tell you that!" he protested. "Top secret- for the military. It's classified!"

"Listen to me," Robin said. "Your classified project is now either about to be or already in the hands of a psychotic genius who is absolutely going to put it to use. If we're going to stop him and get it back, we need to know what it is."

The scientist let his breath out. "All right, all right- you make your point. It's a communications array, very advanced- it can send and recieve signals powerful enough you could transmit the experiences of fifty lifetimes on them, and punch them through any interference. It was designed for battlefield communications, sending codes, blueprints, or other information no matter how much the enemy tries to block it."

"Communications?" Beast Boy asked. "That's a bit boring. I can't believe Slade went through all this trouble just to get better cable."

"He must be planning on sending some sort of signal," Robin asked. "But why? What's he trying to accomplish?"

"It's Slade- he's the master of hiding what he's doing until it's too late," Raven pointed out. "But whatever this is, I'm not liking the sound of it at all."

"Neither am I," said Robin as he wondered again exactly what his old nemesis could be up to this time.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Ravager came to a stop in one of the city's parks and cursed under her breath. This was the general direction Sharpshot had been going, but he hadn't left much of a trail, and soon it had disappeared completely. The entrance to Slade's lair he'd been heading for could be nearby, or far behind or in front of her. There was no easy way to tell.

Rage and frustration built up inside her chest. "Where are you!" she shouted towards the sky, to which then only response was a small flock of startled birds taking wing.

The small drone camera that Sharpshot had left behind him when he fled, however, was perched silently in one of the trees, transmitting the scene it had just witnessed back to a very interested watcher in his lair deep beneath the city's streets.


	9. Chapter 8: Secrets Revealed

**Chapter 8: Secrets Revealed**

Ravager sighed as she slipped through the open window of her motel room, pulling off her mask as soon as she was inside. Apart from leaving a largely positive impression on Robin (from what she'd seen, the only Titan she thought worth impressing) and sending Sharpshot running with his tail between his legs, this last night had accomplished nothing. She'd hunted through the park thoroughly, and when that failed had accosted some random lowlifes in bars that catered to the less-than-legal, but hadn't found anything that might lead her to Slade's whereabouts. Of course, his name _did_ seem to be a major conversation killer around here…

Tossing her mask aside, she pulled off her costume and collapsed to her bed in the shirt and shorts she wore under it. Hopefully she'd have better luck tomorrow night, she though, before drifting off into sleep.

She was awakened by the sound of somebody pounding on her door. Growling irritably, she pulled herself up into a seated position and stalked over to it, noting absently that, if the sunlight shining through the window was any indication, it was midday. Reaching the door, she opened it a crack and saw one of the motel clerks standing on the other side, looking deathly bored.

"What do you want?" Ravager asked him darkly. If he didn't have a _really_ good reason for waking her up, he was about to be in a world of hurt.

"Some guy dropped this off for you a little bit ago," the clerk said, holding out an envelope. "Acted all cocky and said I'd better give it to you right away if I knew what was good for me, then he ran off."

For a moment, that description made Ravager think of Sharpshot, but that didn't make sense. If Slade knew where she was, she doubted he'd bother with playing games. "Give it here," she said, opening the door wider and holding out her hand. The clerk pressed the envelope into it and then turned and left. Ravager closed the door and hurried over to her bed, sitting down to read. The front of the envelope said simply, "For the girl in room 11." As that gave her no clue as to who had sent it or why, she ripped it open and unfolded a short note.

"I hear you've been in town for the last few days looking for a certain special someone," she read. "I might be able to help you, if you can make it worth my while. Meet me at midnight tonight to talk things over. By the way, love the look." The name of two streets, presumably an intersection, followed, and the note was signed with a simple X in red ink, though the rest of the writing was in black. Ravager was positive that was significant somehow, but couldn't for the life of her figure out how. Still, this seemed far too good an opportunity to pass up.

The note made no mention of what "worth my while" entailed, but from the tone she could guess. Ducking under her bed, she pulled out the small safe she'd stashed there (for once, it was merciful this grubby little place had apparently never heard of cleaning service) and opened it; inside were several tight rolls of bills, all in large denominations. She hadn't earned some of this money, and stolen the rest of it, just to pay off some lowlife creep who thought he knew something, but if it got her closer to her goal, she'd consider it well-spent.

Ravager stuffed a good chunk of the cash into one of her costume's pockets and restored the safe. Picking up her mask, she sat down on her bed and stared into its one empty eye, imagining exactly what she'd say and do when she finally came face to face with the man who'd inspired its design.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

The great machine growled and whirred, and from its depths rose a tall, cylindrical base topped with a claw that clutched a sort of shimmering crystal the likes of which the apprentice had never seen before. He meant to ask Slade what it was, but when he turned and saw his master staring intently at the sight before them he thought better of it. Interrupting his thoughts now would likely have only painful consequences; Slade would explain himself when he wished to, or not at all.

From beneath the balcony on which the two stood, a pair of the larger soldier-robots emerged, carrying between them the advanced transmitter for which the apprentice had provided a distraction so that it could be stolen. The planted it firmly on the base beside the crystal, and then began hooking up cables to connect the two together. The apprentice watched in fascination.

"You must be wondering what purpose all of this serves," Slade said suddenly.

"I am," the apprentice replied, desperately hoping he'd said the right thing and hadn't roused his master's rarely seen, but all the more terrible for it, anger.

Slade turned to him. "Of course you are. I would have no interest in an apprentice who only mindlessly obeyed. And yet you didn't ask about it until I asked you- you know when to show respect and restraint. That is good." He turned to leave the balcony. "Come with me, and I will show you the fruits of our labors."

He led the way through the twisting passages of the lair, until they came to a room that was dominated by a low tunnel that projected a slowly-rotating hologram of Jump City into the air above it. Slade stopped beside the table and began to twist the controls; the hologram shifted to show the strange, smooth crystal device.

"This is a piece of alien technology I was fortunate to acquire," Slade said. "From… let us say, friends from out of town. Unfortunately, when it first came into my possession it was damaged and non-functional. A foolish Tamaranean scientist repaired it for me*, and so it was able to become the centerpiece of my grand design. This device possesses the capacity to overwrite the programs of any sufficiently advanced technology and bend it completely to its user's will- in this case, mine. I briefly entertained notions of using it to subvert Titans' Tower, but I soon found a far better use for it."

Again the hologram shifted; now it showed a satellite in high orbit above the Earth. "This satellite is the nerve center of the United States orbital weapons platform system. Were I to seize control of it, every weaponized satellite in the sky would belong to me alone. Microwave cannons, nuclear weapons' emplacements, interceptor missiles- all of them mine, and all of them pointing at the world below. Unfortunately I had no means of delivering my device to the central satellite, and the security encryptions were too strong for even I to crack easily. Until today."

He raised his head to look directly at the apprentice while the display shifted again to become the stolen communications array. "This, however, has the power to transmit the alien device's signal, and punch it through even the most powerful interference. Within the next few days the link between the two will be complete, and I will send the transmission. All of America's orbital defenses will be mine, and I will have the power to destroy any target in this world that I choose. I will likely, of course, have to provide a few… demonstrations to prove my point, but in the end, all the world will bow to my will. They will have no other choice."

The apprentice realized he was gaping and quickly shut his mouth. "Whoa," he finally managed to say. "But- why? Why do you want to be dictator of the world in the first place?" He realized as soon as the words came out of his mouth that he'd said the wrong thing; unfortunately, it was too late to take them back.

Slade straightened up and without warning backhanded the apprentice across the face. He stumbled back and looked up to see the master standing directly in front of him. Somehow, it had never really hit him until now how tall Slade was…

"Why?" Slade asked, his voice even and colder than a bitter winter wind. "You think I'm mad, don't you? They all do, sooner or later, but that isn't true. I have been mad, of course, but no longer; I passed through madness and came through to the light of cold clarity and there I saw that there is one truth. All that is real is power, and power needs no reasons or justifications. It _is_. Once I deluded myself with other things, but now I understand that they are meaningless." He seized the apprentice by his collar and leaned in close to his face. "Don't ask such a question again. Only the weak try to justify power, and I will not have weakness in my apprentice. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir," the apprentice said. Slade nodded, satisfied, and released him.

"Now go, and prepare yourself," the master said as he turned away. "In a few days time, we change this world forever."

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Ravager paced in the dark alley that one of the streets in the note's intersection had turned out to be. It was almost midnight, and so far, her mysterious contact hadn't shown up. She was beginning to think that someone had set her up.

"Hey there," a jaunty, faintly mechanical voice said from the shadows nearby. "Nice mask." Ravager drew her sword and spun towards the sound; as she did so the air shimmered and a figure in a strange black costume and tattered cape materialized from it. His face was nothing but a stylized skull, the forehead marked with a slightly skewed red "X".

"So," Ravager said, not lowering her sword, "you must be the guy who wanted to see me."

"In the flesh," the man- boy? Even woman? It was impossible to tell- said. "Name's Red X. You might have heard of me."

Ravager nodded. That was why the note's signature had rung a bell- Red X had featured into a couple of the news clippings about Slade she'd collected. "They say you're a spy and thief," she said. "Mostly freelance, sometimes willing to work for someone else if the job's exciting and the pay is good. They also say you're the best at what you do."

He sketched a bow. "You flatter me! Of course, I _am_ the best, but it's always nice to hear someone else admit it too. I've heard of you, too- they say you've been running around town the last couple of nights, looking for Slade. I do love the look, by the way- it takes style to steal someone else's trademark and make it your own." He gave her a mock salute, as from one professional to another, but didn't elaborate on the comment; Ravager decided to let it slide and get to the point.

"Your note said that you could help me find Slade," she told him. "How?"

"I've done some work for the old creep a few times**," X said. "But he's not my kind of boss- I don't like being micromanaged, and he's a real control freak. I do, however, still have the route I took to get to his lair last time." He held up a tightly folded piece of paper in one hand. "Right here."

Ravager made a grab for it, but X jumped back and hovered a few feet off the ground- some sort of anti-grav tech keeping him just out of reach. "Give me that!" she hissed at him.

"Uh-uh," X said, wagging a finger at her. "I think you've got something for me first."

"All right," she sighed. Digging into her pockets, she pulled out the money and handed it up to him. X counted through it and nodded.

"Good enough," he said. "But then, the money's not my real stake in this. Here's your prize!" He tossed the small square of paper over; Ravager caught it and unfurled it, revealing a map of an abandoned subway line beneath the city, leading directly to a hidden door.

"Now, I can't promise that there won't be traps, or that you can get the door open without being authorized," X said. "I've done my part- rest is up to you." He turned to go, but Ravager stopped him.

"You said that money wasn't the real reason you did this," she said. "What are you really after?"

He shrugged. "You're after Slade, the Titans are after Slade, and he's after something big. When you all run into each other, something major is going down. I'm just doing my part to ensure I get front-row seats at the fireworks display of the century. What can I say? I like living dangerously." He stepped back and blurred the air around himself again as he activated his cloaker; in an instant he was gone, leaving Ravager alone in the alley with the key to her future in her hand.

*See my fanfic "Child of the Stars" for details on Slade's temporary alliance with Blackfire's gang of Tamaranean outcasts, and what they got out of the bargain.

**For further information on when and why Red X worked for Slade, see "The Art of War".


	10. Chapter 9: Alike

**Chapter 9: Alike**

Robin pulled the R-cycle up against the curb and sighed, yanking off his helmet so that he could rub at his eyes without it getting in the way. It had been several nights now since the Titans had discovered that Slade had stolen the communications array, and since then the team had been scouring the city in the general direction that the blocked tunnel had gone, trying and failing to find its source. Cyborg had attempted to use his scanners to detect holes in the bedrock beneath the city, but between subway lines, sewer pipes, and even the lairs of criminals completely unaffiliated with Slade, he'd turned up far too _much_ information to be of much use (though admittedly, the look on Dr. Light's face when the Titans had inadvertently stumbled on his allegedly secret hideout had _almost_ been worth it).

"There you are," a familiar voice said, drawing Robin from his reflections. He turned to see Ravager leap lightly from the low roof of a nearby building and land in front of him- her mask made it hard to recognize her emotions, but something about her posture seemed very satisfied. "I've been looking for you for hours."

"Decided you need help searching?" Robin asked her. "We've been at it for days now, and I'm sorry to say we haven't found anything useful either."

"Actually," she told him, "I'm here to help you. Ran into a guy the other night who gave me some _very_ interesting information- thought you might want to see it." Ravager held up a small folded square of paper in one hand. Robin took it and unfurled it, and his eyes widened as he realized what he was seeing.

"This is a map of the tunnels beneath the city," he breathed, "and if I'm reading it right, it leads straight to the entrance of Slade's lair." He looked up at Ravager questioningly. "Where did you get this?"

"A guy," she said, shrugging. "Honestly, I don't think you'd want to know any more than that. But I did a little snooping myself, and as far as I can tell, it's the real deal."

"Why are you giving this to me?" Robin asked.

"Because I'm not a fool," she replied. "Slade's one of the most dangerous people in the world- I've been following his press clippings ever since people first started hearing about him, so I may not know him like you do, but I know what I'm up against. If I run down there by myself, I'd get toasted. But if we all go at him at once, I might stand a better chance."

"A better chance of doing what, exactly?" Robin asked warily. He knew Ravager had some issue with Slade, and she seemed to want to take him down, but he still didn't know why or what she planned to do when she caught him. Now, with a final confrontation looking imminent, that seemed like an important issue to clear up.

"I'm not going to spill all my secrets to you, if that's what you want," Ravager returned, equally wary. "But I'm not working for Slade, I'm not trying to lead you into a trap, and I've got reasons to be hostile towards him. Let's leave it at that, but please believe me." Despite himself, Robin found he did- there was an intensity in her voice that sounded very genuine. He still didn't trust her entirely, but he was becoming certain that her goals and Slade's didn't intersect.

"All right," he said. "Anything else you came to say?"

"Keep the map- it's a copy, and I've got the original. Don't watch for me- when you go for Slade, I'll be there." She and Robin looked at each other and nodded, warrior to warrior. She turned to go, and he slipped his helmet back on and prepared to start the R-cycle's engine when he felt her hand on his shoulder.

"Something else?" Robin asked.

She paused, as though wondering how to say what she was going to say, and then finally she spoke. "Why are you with the Titans?" she finally asked. "Look at them- aliens, magic-users, mutants. They've all got amazing powers, and you don't. You're just someone who knows how to fight, and you've got to work and use all those weapons to just keep up with what they can do easily. You're not really like them." She paused. "You're more like me."

Robin felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. _We really are so very much alike_, a cold voice said out of the past. For a moment he saw another person who wore the same mask and remembered how awful he'd felt, powerless in the grip of evil. "That doesn't matter," he finally said, uncertain which of the two he was speaking to. "The Titans are my friends- that's what matters. I'm not even sure who you are." He kicked the R-cycle into gear. "Thanks for the map." Then he shot off into the night.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

"Well _that_ was brilliant," Ravager muttered, watching him go. "Oh, well. He's a good fighter, but I think I really _don't_ need a partner after all. I'll be seeing him soon enough anyway." Turning, she darted into an alley and found a ladder which she could climb back to the roof.

In the sky above, another girl watched the entire conversation and felt a shiver running through her. She followed Ravager with her gaze, and then looked off down the street where Robin had gone. She hovered in midair for several minutes, making up her mind, and then Starfire shot off towards Titans' Tower at full speed.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Robin followed the map Ravager had given him through the dark tunnels, shining a small flashlight he carried in his utility belt ahead of him. Uncomfortable as her words had made him, he had to admit that so far the map had led him right; this abandoned subway line seemed unnecessarily complex, and he likely would have been lost without it. The tunnels also seemed remarkably clean and free of debris, and didn't seemed to go anywhere in particular- Robin was beginning to think that they had never been intended to carry trains, but only as cover, and he wondered exactly how much pull Slade really had. There was still so much he didn't know about Jump City's most dangerous criminal.

Finally he stopped at what the map indicated was the last intersection, and slowly peeked around it. The tunnel ended ahead in a blank wall, but looking carefully near the ceiling, Robin could make out a pair of watchful security cameras. He quickly pulled back before they turned his way again, and knew that there was no point in having those devices down here at a dead end where no one came, unless something was hidden here that was worth protecting.

He wouldn't be completely sure until the Titans broke in, but he was fairly confident that the map had led him right. He'd found the entrance to Slade's hidden lair.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Raven had returned from patrol about half an hour earlier, and now hovered about a foot above her bed, legs crossed in midair, as she engrossed herself completely in a book of spells and mystical techniques she'd recently acquired. She was mouthing out the most recent incantation silently to herself when she was torn back to reality by the sound of someone knocking on the door.

"Raven?" a familiar voice asked. "Are you there?"

"Coming, Starfire," the sorceress replied, dropping back to the floor and closing the book carefully. Gliding across the floor, she opened the door to find her fellow Titan standing there and looking distinctly unhappy.

"Raven, I wish to talk to you. May I come in?"

Raven's first reaction was to say no, that any conversation Starfire wanted to have could just as easily be held out in the hall, but while it was sometimes difficult for Raven to get a psychic read on nonhumans, there was something about the Tamaranean's posture that indicated that whatever was going on, she thought it was serious. "All right," Raven allowed. "Come in, and tell me what's going on."

Starfire seated herself on the corner of the bed and was silent for a moment before speaking. "I was on patrol tonight, and as I was flying I saw Robin on the corner of a street. He was talking to that girl who calls herself the Ravager."

"Are you sure you're not just jealous, Starfire?" Raven asked.

The Tamaranean shook her head. "It is more than that," she said. "I got close enough so that I could hear what they were saying, and… I did not like it." She quickly summarized what had passed between Robin and Ravager.

When she was through, Raven nodded slowly. "I don't like it either," she said. "Ravager may be Slade's enemy, but if she's trying to manipulate Robin into leaving us to team up with her, she's not our friend either. There are definitely things going on here that we're not seeing, and we need to."

"You do not think there is any chance that Robin will listen to her, do you?" Starfire asked, her tone showing a mix of anger and worry. Raven shook her head.

"Listen, Starfire- I'm hardly the world's biggest expert on feelings, but I do know Robin. From what you said, he drove off rather than listen to her, and I don't think he'd leave the Titans just because of some things someone he barely knows said. Robin's loyal to his team, to his friends- and he's loyal to you." Raven did her best to sound encouraging, well aware that "encouraging and hopeful" wasn't her strong area. "I wouldn't worry."

"You are right, Raven" Starfire admitted. "I shouldn't worry about Robin. But I _do_ worry about Ravager. I think we need to know who she is and what she wants."

"I agree, but what do you want us to do about it? We've got our hands full with Slade already."

Starfire looked rather sheepish before leaning closer to Raven. "Robin told me that he put one of Cyborg's trackers on Ravager the other night before she ran off, while she was with him on… the motorcycle. We could use that to follow her to wherever she is staying. I would have done it already, but I do not think I am very good at the sneaking."

And so Raven found herself flying over the city again an hour later with a transmitter tuned to Cyborg's tracers in one hand, wondering exactly how in Azar's name she'd let herself get talked into this.


	11. Chapter 10: Daughers of Darkness

**Chapter 10: Daughters of Darkness**

"Nice," Raven muttered dryly as she looked down on the building her scanner had led her to. It had every appearance of being a cheap, run-down motel, the type you might see around the edges of any big city, and the tracker's signal was coming up loud and clear from one of the rooms down below. Either this was where Ravager was, or she'd found the tracer and deliberately hidden it here as a trap- and in Raven's opinion, a trap set in a second-rate motel was one that _really_ needed to go back to the drawing board.

Wrapping herself in dark energy to conceal herself from prying eyes and muffle any sounds she might make, she lowered herself down by the side of the building and glanced in through the window of Ravager's room. For the moment, it looked empty, and Raven suppressed a sigh of irritation. This might, she realized, actually be helpful, though- perhaps Ravager had left something inside that would give a clue as to who she really was and what she wanted. Ordinarily Raven, an intensely private person herself, wouldn't consider intruding on the privacy of another this way- but Ravager was an unknown factor, quite possibly a dangerous one, and her friends needed _something_ more than they had to go on. And besides, anyone who willingly wore a Slade mask wasn't exactly trying to stay above suspicion.

Breathing deeply, Raven murmured her mantra and pressed up against the wall; she could feel her body temporarily change to pure energy as she slipped through, becoming solid again once she stood inside the room. Glancing around, she didn't see anything of particular interest- just the tracer lying on the bed, somewhat dented. Apparently Ravager had found it, tried to take it apart to figure out what it was, and failed. Raven allowed herself a slight smile at that- Cyborg's tech wasn't that easy for an amateur to break into.

Something beneath the bed caught Raven's eye, and she glided over and bent down to see what it was. It looked like old newspaper clippings, of all things, and she found that her curiosity was piqued. Obviously this room wasn't Ravager's home- why would these be so important to her that she'd bring them here with her? Raven held out a hand a reached out with her will, and the papers came flying into her grasp. Her eyes widened as they took in the front page- it was dominated by a photograph of an all-too-familiar blonde-haired girl in form-fitting armor tearing through police cars with immense boulders, and a smaller picture in the article itself showed an equally familiar bronze-and-black mask.

SUPERVILLAINS MAKE BID FOR POWER, the headline read. SLADE AND TERRA TAKE ON THE POLICE AND TITANS FOR CONTROL OF THE CITY.

"Slade's press clippings," Raven muttered. "Looks like he has a fan- or a stalker, and I'm not sure which is more disturbing."

Rifling through the papers revealed more of the same, calling back old and uncomfortable memories- the giant drill-worms that Slade had unleashed to destroy Titans' Tower, repeated thefts of high-end technology by the distinctive robots and a mysterious figure called "Red X" (Raven was glad the press hadn't gotten hold of the first X's identity- _that_ wouldn't have helped publicity), and how a certain trio of HIVE mercenaries had been traced back to a mysterious employer who was, of course, Slade himself. The criminal mastermind preferred to stay out of the public spotlight, but every time he'd wound up there anyway, Ravager seemed to have record of. More recently there was very little, save for small reports on how Slade was believed to be active again after an extended absence (which was technically true, Raven mused, death being about as "absent" as it was possible to get).

Putting aside the top papers, she found herself staring at some that were much older, and didn't seem to fit the mold at all. They were single pages that had been torn from the middle of larger papers, and they didn't seem to have anything to do with supervillains of any stripe- one article was topped with a picture of a smiling man who looked relatively young despite his white hair and beard, standing together with a woman and three children. The article itself seemed to be little more than a profile of the man, apparently some sort of war hero. Raven only skimmed the article briefly, wondering why on earth Ravager had it in her collection, when a name suddenly jumped out at her. She read it again, eyes wide, and glanced back at the picture.

The caption read, "Slade Wilson and family."

"Slade," Raven breathed. What Robin would give to see this- if it was what she thought it was, then here was the answer to the question that had haunted the team ever since it had first become apparent that the brutish Cinderblock was only a pawn in someone else's grander schemes. Who was Slade, really, and why did he do the things he did? Could the answer really be here, in this decade-old newspaper article? Quickly, Raven began to read the text of the article in full.

Slade Wilson, according to the description, had been an elite commando, part of a team who'd been given a combination of intensive training and chemical therapy to be made into the ultimate warriors. He'd distinguished himself above and beyond the rest of his unit, executing a number of daring spying, sabotage, and rescue missions that earned him recognition from the highest levels of command. His service complete, he'd retired to raise a family with his wife Adeline- they'd had three children, Grant, Joey, and Rose.

Raven glanced up at the picture again, her eyes falling on the tall, athletic-looking girl who stood beside an oddly familiar looking blond boy. She couldn't have been older than seven or eight, but her hair was already pure white, like her father's- and like a certain other girl the Titans had been dealing with recently. "Hello, Ravager," Raven whispered.

She dropped the papers, mind reeling from the new information. She had the pieces now, she was certain of it, but as of yet they didn't seem to quite connect. If Slade Wilson the army hero and Slade the criminal genius really were the same man, what had happened in the intervening years to turn the one into the other, and turn the girl Rose into the bitter, obsessive Ravager? Quickly Raven knelt and began to sort through the papers again, looking for something that might tie everything together. All she found was a short article that described a fire that had burned down Slade Wilson's house eight years ago- the entire family was presumed dead. That had to be it, but Raven couldn't shake the feeling that there was more that the papers weren't telling.

And suddenly, neither could she shake the feeling that she was no longer alone. The sorceress leapt to her feet and spun around, just in time to see Ravager's fist before it struck her in the face.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you," the other girl hissed, "that going through things that don't belong to you is _rude_!"

Raven fell back, head ringing. She didn't dare try any magic in this state- she might blow the whole motel up, and that if she was lucky. Her best bet was to keep Ravager talking until her head had time to clear. "If you wear an infamous criminal's mask and try to turn our team members against us, you should be ready to accept the consequences," Raven told her.

"Oh, that's rich, coming from you," Ravager spat. "I'm _not_ going to be lectured on secrets by the Prince of Darkness's very own daughter! See, you're not the only one who can do some snooping and find out secrets."

"Well, I know yours, too," Raven replied. "So, does the mask run in the family too, or just the hair?"

"You can try taunting me all you want, but it's not going to work," Ravager said. "If you know who I am, then you know we're more alike than you might want to admit. But think about it- I'm a dark reflection of you, really. It wouldn't take much to push you from the light, and make you like me."

"You know, I resent being compared to someone who cribs lines from old _Indiana Jones_ movies rather than making up her own," Raven shot back. "But you started this, not me. I think I can get at why you're after Slade now- believe me, I understand about having a father you didn't want- and we can settle this between ourselves after we take him down."

"You understand _nothing_!" Ravager shouted, drawing her sword and lunging forward, forcing Raven to roll away from the blade. "You come from a beautiful place I can't even imagine, but I lost _everything_ all in one night, and the father I _worshipped_ never even bothered to find out if I was alive or not! Don't talk like you know me, because you don't."

"So much for us being alike," Raven muttered. Ravager's next sword swing darted towards her, but she caught the blade between her hands and send a blast of energy coursing through it. The steel shattered, and Ravager was sent flying back across the room to land on a heap on the bed. Groaning, she sat up and looked at what was left of her weapon.

"You'll pay for that, witch," she growled, and lunged forward with the easy grace of a trained fighter. Raven knew some martial arts, but the peaceful Azarathians practiced them as discipline rather than combat techniques, and she knew she would be no match for the other girl in hand to hand, and she still didn't dare try for any really spectacular magic. Her had had been better, but after shattering the sword it was ringing again.

Ravager lunged, and Raven blocked her blows once… twice… three times… but the fourth struck home, and the sorceress collapsed, the wind knocked out of her. More blows fell, and she groaned, trying to get away. Then she was lifted up and placed in a chair, and felt something strong and sticky being wound around her. Duct tape. Great.

Shaking her head, Raven looked up at Ravager. "Why?" she asked. "Why all the secrets, why make us your enemies when we don't have to be? You want Slade brought down as much as we do, so why are you acting like a bad guy too?"

Ravager paused for a moment, then pulled off her mask. Beneath it she looked to be a few years older than Raven herself, and despite the mask's one eye hole, both of her eyes seemed to be functional. In her face could still be seen traces of the girl she'd been in the old photo, taken a decade ago. "Because," Rose Wilson said softly, "if they knew who I was, they'd hate me, they'd never help me. Now you know, and that's why you're staying put until everything is through." Carefully, she placed the mask over her head again, stalked over to the window, and slipped out through it, leaving Raven struggling against the duct tape that bound her to the chair.

Rose had been wrong, Raven thought after she was gone. She _did_ understand at least part of it- the secrets, the fear, the resentment. She'd gone through all of that herself. But in the end, Raven had learned that there were people she could trust, and had found that when she shared her burden with her friends, it became light enough for them all to bear it. Ravager, though, hadn't seemed to have learned that lesson, and now looked to be rushing headlong to her own destruction, and it she wasn't careful, the Titans' destruction too. Raven knew that she couldn't let that happen.

Calming herself down, she ceased struggling against the tape and closed her eyes, focusing all her will and power into three words. "Azarath metrion zinthos… Azarath metrion zinthos…"


	12. Chapter 11: A Long Time Coming

AN: Sorry for the lag-time between updates, but we're in the home stretch now! For those curious, I used some elements from Slade's oldest son, Grant, and some of my own creation, for my characterization of Rose/Ravager. In my 'verse, Rose is Slade's legitimate daughter and oldest child, and Grant is still alive, isn't Ravager, and hasn't appeared at all (though some aspects of him that didn't make their way to Rose got added to Sharpshot, my OC). Like the _Titans_ cartoon, and the GO! comics, I'm adapting the characters, rather than simply replicating them, and did what I thought would make for the best story.

**Chapter 11: A Long Time Coming**

The apprentice made his way carefully among the now-active machinery in the heart of the lair, doing his best to ignore the spinning gears, flashing lights, and other strange effects- no matter how fascinating, and in some cases unnerving, they might be, Slade would not approve of his getting distracted from his task. Finally he came to stand just below the raised walkway in the center of the chamber, which itself surrounded the platform on which the communications array had been installed- and beneath which pulsed the alien device that would be the key to the master's victory. Slade himself stood on the walkway's edge, leaning on the railing and looking down with a coldly satisfied eye on the goings-on below him.

"Report," he said, the single word seeming to echo through the chamber despite the soft voice in which it had been spoken.

"The defenses are in place, master," the apprentice told him. "Nothing will get through until it's too late to stop you." He paused for a moment. "Are you really sure the Titans will be here? I doubt they even know where we _are_."

Slade's eye fixed his apprentice with an icy, merciless stare. "Believe it," he hissed. "Robin has a habit of showing up at most inopportune moments, and I have no doubt he'll have his little friends with him. This will be the end, one way or another- before the sun rises, the Titans will be crushed, and the world will be in the palm of my hand." He fell silent, raking the apprentice over again with his gaze. "You have doubts? Don't. They will come, and you will see; if you are lucky, you will survive to admit that I was right. Now go and stand guard. I must not be interrupted until I am ready."

"Yes, Master," the apprentice said as Slade turned away. He still wasn't sure where his master got his knowledge, but there was one thing he knew for certain; when one was standing there fixed by that terrible eye, listening to that flat, cold voice, it was impossible to doubt that Slade knew exactly what he was doing, and that soon the world itself would be his.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Robin turned to face his friends as they gathered in the tower living room; he'd called them all via communicator and told them he had important news, and now Beast Boy looked eager, Cyborg determined, and Starfire unusually anxious as they waited for what he had to say. The only one missing was Raven- who was also the only one who hadn't answered the call. Robin frowned.

"Anybody know where Raven is?" he asked; something about her absence was bothering him; more than just concern for her safety, something felt very wrong.

"Raven told me that she was following a special lead," Starfire said, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. "She wished me to tell you not to worry about her, but she does not know when she will return."

Robin raised an eyebrow- that sounded rather suspicious, but it was coming from Starfire, the last person he would ever expect any kind of plotting from. Finally he shrugged, feeling he had no choice but to trust her. "Earlier tonight, I met Ravager," he said. "She gave me a map of the city's old subway system- and it leads directly to Slade's lair."

"You sure about this, man?" Cyborg asked. "Sounds like it could be a trap."

"Yeah," put in Beast Boy. "Ravager doesn't like Slade, but I still don't think she's on our side- and that mask gives me the creeps."

"I know," Robin said, raising both hands. "I understand why you're worried- I am too. But I checked it out, and there's definitely something down there that someone wants protected. Slade is up to something big, and we're the only ones in town who stand a chance of stopping him." He drew in a deep breath. "I know I've not always been… rational… where Slade's concerned, but this is something real, and I'll need your help. I think it's time to take Slade down for good, before he hurts anyone else."

"We are with you, Robin," Starfire said.

"Yeah," Cyborg added. "Slade's tough, and smart, but if all of us back him into a corner, we can take him."

Robin smiled. "Thanks for sticking with me. It means a lot, being able to rely on your team in something like this. I was thinking we should go down there tonight, but now I think we should wait for Raven. I think we're going to need her powers."

Starfire looked nervous again. "Raven… does not know when she will be back," she said hesitantly. "But I do not think she would want us to waste our chance to defeat Slade because of her." Robin eyed her oddly again- what was Star hiding, anyway?- but he had to admit her point made sense. Still, this made him uncomfortable.

"All right," he finally said. "I've got the map with me, and I know where Slade is. If you guys are with me- let's do this."

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Cyborg pulled his head back from where he'd been looking around the tunnel corner and nodded at Robin. "Looks like you were right, man," he said. "Blank wall, security cameras, dead-end tunnel that's not under anything useful- smells like "secret bad-guy lair" to me. So what's the next move?"

Robin smiled and removed a small explosive from his belt. "We break in, and shut it down." He held up the weapon. "Sonic boom?" * Cyborg converted his arm into its cannon mode and returned the grin.

The leader of the Titans darted around the corner and hurled his bomb at the 'blank wall'- it stuck there and beeped frantically before being struck and ignited by a burst from Cyborg's sonic cannon. The combined explosion blasted through the door with such force that both security cameras were torn from their bases and cracks formed in the ceiling.

"Glad you didn't use two bombs," Beast Boy said nervously, looking up at the damaged roof. The other Titans ignored him.

"Let's do it," Robin said, drawing his staff and extending it to its full length. He charged down the tunnel and through the exposed doorway, with Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy (in the shape of a leopard) following close behind. Beyond the fake wall was a long, featureless corridor lined with a dark bronze metal the same color as Slade's mask; the Titans walked along nervously, weapons and powers at the ready as they waited for a secret trapdoor to open from any direction and hordes of combat robots to come spilling out. Now such threat materialized, however, and after several tense minutes they emerged into a large, open chamber.

The room was large and shaped roughly like a cylinder- several observation balconies lined the walls, and on the ground level several doors opened in different directions. The center of the room was dominated by a large table over which was projected a hologram; as the Titans approached, Robin saw that it was a map of Jump City, and incredibly detailed. Looking closely, he thought he could even see tiny cars moving.

"Incredible," Cyborg said. "I knew Slade was smart, but this is amazing. He must have the whole city under surveillance, and a computer powerful enough to put all the pieces together."

"But why is it just sitting here?" Starfire asked. "Surely Slade would not wish us to interfere with his technology."

"It's called "bait", alien girl," a mocking voice said from nearby; Robin looked up from the map to see Sharpshot standing in one of the now-open doors, flanked by robots and holding a beam pistol in each hand. On the balconies above, more robots emerged, weapons primed, and behind the Titans, the door through which they had entered slammed shut. They were trapped.

"Step into my lair, said the spider to the fly," Sharpshot mocked, and his grin widened.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Raven breathed deeply, allowing calm to flow through her despite her circumstances- emotion would bring raw, uncontrolled power, but to free herself from where Ravager had bound her, she needed precision, and precision required serenity. As she repeated her mantra, she allowed anger at Ravager and fear for her friends fall away, until there was nothing in her but the desire to burst free of the tape. Finally there was a burst of dark energy, and the duct tape was forced from her body and shredded into dozens of smaller pieces. Raven stood up and shoved the chair aside.

"It'll take more than some duct tape to hold me, Ravager," she muttered. Now she was free, but her night wasn't over- Raven still needed to find her friends and tell them what she'd learned. Her instincts told her that something serious was about to go down tonight, and she had learned long ago that her instincts were often very acute.

Pulling her communicator from her belt, Raven set it to home in on her friends'. That accomplished, she seized the newspaper clippings and leaped into the air, gliding out the window and into the night.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

"You know, I didn't think you all were going to show," Sharpshot said, "but Slade did, and he was right. I should have known- he's spooky that way. He knows you all so well- especially you," he added, nodding at Robin for emphasis. "You might almost think the two of you were related."

Robin fought down the surge of anger he felt at those words. "Sorry," he said, "but it'll take more than your taunts to get to me. Now go run and tell your boss that I'd like a word with him- _now_."

"Sorry," Sharpshot said. "Big things are going down tonight, and I can't let you do that. "You're staying right here until they're through- then he'll deal with you."

"He'll deal with us now," Robin said. "Titans, Go!" Around him, his friends sprang into action just as the robots opened fire. Starfire darted among the beams, returning fire with her starbolts; out of the corner of his eye, Robin saw several of the mechanical warriors fall with smoldering holes in them. Cyborg absorbed their attacks with his armor, shielding his vulnerable human face with one hand while firing sonic blasts from his cannon. Beast Boy, still a leopard, charged at a ground-level robot and tackled it, knocking it to the ground and mauling it savagely. Robin himself charged forward, spinning his staff to deflect the attacks and heading straight for Sharpshot.

Slade's apprentice fired blasts from both pistols, but Robin was ready for his uncanny reflexes this time. Those bolts he was unable to dodge he simply parried with his staff, and when he'd closed with the other teen warrior he leaped into the air and slammed feet-first into his chest, sending him stumbling back.

"Impossible!" Sharpshot gasped. "I'm stronger than you- I'm faster than you! How are you doing this?"

"Strength and speed are good," Robin said, "but they're no substitute for training and skill, and I've trained with the best. Are you nothing but powerful guns and enhanced reflexes, or do you have what it takes to face me like a real warrior?"

"We'll see who's the real warrior here, bird-brain!" Sharpshot shouted angrily and charged forward, drawing a long-bladed knife the edge of which pulsed with electrical energy. Robin brought his staff up and parried, sending small lightning bolts coursing down it, but leaving him unharmed. The two grappled, skill balancing out physical enhancement so neither could gain advantage over the other. At one point a robot aimed its weapon at Robin, but Sharpshot waved it away angrily, determined to defeat his opponent on his own.

Finally, Sharpshot charged with all his strength and took Robin in the stomach with his shoulder. The Titan leader was slammed back into the wall, and Slade's apprentice struck him on the side of the head with the hilt of his knife. Robin looked up through wavering vision to see Sharpshot standing over him, grinning.

"You're good," he said softly, "but I'm better. I'm the apprentice Slade always wanted- I'm better than you ever were, and now he'll see that. I'll be like a son to him, and he'll teach me everything he knows until I am the greatest warrior in the world- and I think I'll let you live, just so you can see it."

"You're wrong," Robin told him. "Slade doesn't love- he doesn't have friends or family. You're just a tool to him, and when he's through with you he'll throw you away and find someone else. That's how he works- believe me, I know. You're not a son- you're just a pawn."

Sharpshot grabbed Robin by the collar and pulled him up to eye level. "Liar," he hissed. "You're just trying to mess with me, because you're out of tricks!"

"No," Robin said. "You know what I'm saying is true. And besides- I've still got one trick left." Quick as was humanly possible, Robin's hand darted to his belt and withdrew a birdarang. Before Sharpshot could react, he raked the blade along the hand that held his collar, and the apprentice released him, howling in pain. Robin dropped to the ground but was on his feet again in an instant; he leapt forward and caught Sharpshot on the side of the head with a flying kick. The apprentice stumbled and fell, and Robin caught him by the front of the shirt and held him up.

"Slade might win or lose tonight," Robin said, "but for you, Sharpshot, it's over."

# # # # # # # # # # # #

From his control room, Slade watched his apprentice go down and shook his head disapprovingly. "Really," he said, "I expected better of you. I thought you might be a worthy replacement for Robin, but I was wrong- he remains, as he ever was, my ideal apprentice." He turned away from the monitors that showed the fight and turned to the controls of the machine that would soon place the world itself at his fingertips.

"But you have bought me time," he continued. "And tonight, time is all I ever really needed." Slade pressed a series of keys on his control panel, and was rewarded as he watched them hum to life. "Now it ends, once and for all."

# # # # # # # # # # # #

As Robin held the defeated Sharpshot, the ground suddenly heaved beneath his feet. He stumbled, but managed to stay upright and maintain his hold on his defeated enemy, but even as the quake subsided, he heard a strange and ominous sound over the other Titans' continuing battle with the robots- like something immeasurably huge rising slowly to the surface.

Robin pulled Sharpshot close. "Talk," he said. "What's Slade doing- what's going on?"

The apprentice's face broke into a terrible grin. "You're too late," he spat. "Nothing can stop him now!"

*If you'll recall, Cyborg and Robin use this same move to get an extra-powerful explosion all the way back in "Divide and Conquer". Since that was Slade's first appearance, I thought it made a nice bookend to use it here.


	13. Chapter 12: Sins of the Father

**Chapter 12: Sins of the Father**

As the ground shook beneath them and the sound of rumbling increased, the remaining robots fell silent, deactivating their weapons and standing perfectly still, like strange metal statues. The Titans stared around themselves in shock and bewilderment as the lair's roof opened itself to the sky. Looking up, they could see a tall tower projecting itself high above the city; perched atop it, Robin could just make out something that looked suspiciously like the communications array Slade had stolen.

Robin looked back to Sharpshot and shook him. "Talk," he growled. "What's going on? What's Slade doing?"

"It doesn't matter," the apprentice replied. "You can't stop him. You're too late!"

"You said that already," Robin told him. "And we'll see about that." Drawing back his fist, he hit Sharpshot hard on the side of the head, and the other teenager crumpled into an unconscious heap. Leaving him where he lay, he turned and ran over to his friends.

"Dude!" Beast Boy said, "I don't have a clue what's going on here, but I don't think it's anything good. What are we gonna do?"

"Simple," Robin told him. "We find out what Slade's doing, and we stop him." Turning to face the tower, he pulled his grappler from his belt and launched it up so that it latched onto the side, and began to climb. From the corner of his eye, he saw a green bat- Beast Boy- flying along beside him, while Starfire carried Cyborg through the air.

Suddenly the tower gave an immense groaning sound, and light flared from its tip and began to flow downward. Robin tensed himself to spring off, but before he could, the light passed over him- and left him unharmed. When he turned to face the other three Titans, however, he saw that a wall of shimmering energy stood between him- a forcefield cutting him off from his friends.

Beast Boy shifted to the form of a pteranadon and swooped at the energy field, only to be repulsed by a bright surge of power. "It's no good, man!" Cyborg called, the field distorting and muffling his voice. "Doesn't look like we can get through."

"Why would Slade activate his defense while Robin was still inside?" Starfire asked.

"Because he wants me here," Robin said darkly. "I'm not the only one Slade's ever hurt, but with me, it's personal- I outmaneuvered him once, and I don't think he's the forgiving sort. He wants to face me one on one, and doesn't want you interfering."

"Should've known you and Slade had business to finish," Cyborg said. "Go for it, man. See if you can stop Slade, and we'll try to bust our way through this forcefield and shut his weapon down, whatever it is."

"Robin," Starfire said, "Good luck."

"Thanks, Star," Robin replied. "You too." Then he turned away and began to climb.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Slade turned his attention away from the viewscreen that depicted his young nemesis, smiling slightly to himself beneath his mask. "That's right, Robin," he said. "Now, I have you all to myself. Finally it ends, one way or another. But now, I have other business to attend to." Reaching out with one gloved hand, he seized a small lever and pulled it down.

Above him, the alien device pulsed and sent a powerful surge of energy racing through thick cables and into the stolen communications disk. Any lesser technology would have been destroyed by the power of that signal, but the dish held firm, tilting upward at the angle Slade had specified, and then it fired the signal off into the depths of space. There it intersected with the orbit of the satellite that was the hub of America's automated orbital defenses and went to work, punching through encryptions and overwriting programming. In the space of less than a minute, the United States military's most powerful weapon had been stolen out from under it, and placed in the hands of a man whose only desire was power.

"Now, I believe a demonstration is in order." Slade quickly inputted a code into his control panel, and far above, a satellite armed with a state-of-the-art microwave cannon turned and pointed directly down towards the heart of the American Midwest. At the push of a button it fired, sending a blast of pure heat that lanced through the void and impacted on the plains, turning several square miles of farmland into a smoldering crater. The blast itself would have been visible for hundreds of miles.

Slade activated his communicator and set it to transmit directly to the Pentagon- too heavily encrypted, of course, to be traced back to him. "My name is Slade," he said calmly into it. "No doubt you have heard of me over the past few years. No doubt your own sensors have revealed to you the blast that just rocked the Great Plains. What you have just witnessed is a sample of my power. Your entire orbital defense network has been subverted- it is mine to do with as I wish. You will order your forces to stand down immediately, and the President will turn leadership of this country over to me. Failure to comply will result in my firing again- on a population center next time. You have been warned- you have one hour. Slade out." At the push of a key, the line fell dead.

They wouldn't submit at first, of course- they would be to proud for that, and wouldn't believe him. But he would demonstrate his power again- and beyond that, if needed. They would learn what it meant to be powerless, and then they would submit to him. It was the only way.

Something metal and sharp shot past Slade's head, and he ducked just in time to miss it. Looking up, he saw the birdarang that had embedded itself in his control panel- a foolish attack, as he could control his signal from any of his lairs. Slowly, unconcernedly, he turned to see the door to his now-several-storey-tall control center open and Robin standing there, another weapon ready to throw in his hand.

"This ends now, Slade," Robin said.

Slade stood slowly and turned to face him, inclining his head in a salute from one adversary to another. "Robin," he said. "How kind of you to drop by. I've been waiting for you."

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Ravager saw the strange tower that was rising from the heart of the city, and she knew that there could only be one cause for it. "Slade," she muttered. "What are you up to, _dad_?" She filled the last word with bitter irony. Red X, it appeared, was right- her father was up to something big, and she didn't like the look of it at all. If there was a time to confront him, now was it. Hopefully the Titans were there as well- she could use the support, at least against the robots. Slade himself, though, was _hers_.

Crowds were gathering in the streets, pointing and staring, but Rose shoved her way through them- the mask itself was enough that some pulled away from her in horror. Quickly she made her way to the base of the tower- or at least as close as she could. It had apparently forced itself out of the ground and was surrounded by a trench, and shimmered with a forcefield. The Titans were nowhere in sight, though it was possible they were already inside, or simply standing somewhere she couldn't see.

"Looks like its time for something I've been saving up," Ravager muttered. Reaching into her belt, she drew a small device that flashed as she flipped a switch on its side- a portable EMP she'd stolen from a scientist in another city. It wasn't very powerful, and she didn't have any more powercells that would fit it after the current one ran out, but it just might be enough to get her through that shield. Strapping it to her belt, she stepped back and then took a running jump across the chasm.

The EMP worked- briefly, but long enough. As Ravager approached the forcefield, it flickered and a small hole opened in it- she pulled her arms and legs in tight and passed through just as the device went dead and the field snapped back into place. Safely inside, she quickly pulled a grappler and cable from her belt and launched it into the side of the tower, catching her as she fell.

"If it's good enough for Batman, it's good enough for me," she murmured under her breath, and then began to climb towards her father, and the culmination of three years of preparation. She would not fail.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

"So I guess this is it, then," Robin said, drawing his staff. "Just you and me. Should have figured it would come down to this."

"Come down to this?" Slade seemed to chuckle silently. "This is not the end, Robin- it is not even _an_ end. It is the beginning of a new age- my age." He paused for a moment, considering. "Still, you always were the best of my enemies- and the best of my apprentices. Some time ago I made you an offer to work for me and share in my power. I feel obliged to extend it once more."

"You have to know that's not going to happen," Robin said. "So what was Sharpshot then- a placeholder? Just another one of your puppets?"

"Sharpshot?" Once more, Slade made no sound but gave the impression of laughter. "Amusing name. What he was, was a disappointment. The subject of an experiment by the Directors of the HIVE- an organization you will of course recognize as the backers of our local HIVE Academy. They wanted to create a superhuman warrior they could control, but the process was very nearly fatal. They considered him a failure- wasteful fools. I rescued him from them and cured the worst effects of his condition in the hopes that he would prove a suitable replacement for you- unfortunately, that did not prove to be the case. As you yourself pointed out, strength and speed are no substitute for skill." Slade drew his own staff and spun it lightly in his hands, testing the balance. "After I finish you, I shall be forced to keep searching until I find someone worthy."

"What is it to you, anyway?" Robin demanded. "The whole time I've known you, you're always looking for some kid to trick or blackmail into being an apprentice. But I've always wondered- why the obsession?"

"Do you really think I'll share my secrets with you, Robin?" Slade asked. "You gave up the right to them when you left my employ. Let us say only that my reasons are personal." His eye narrowed. "Enough talk. Now, we duel."

Robin charged forward, spinning his staff, but Slade caught the blows on his own weapon and parried them easily- he'd certainly not let his skills slack off since they'd last fought. Jumping back, Robin launched a series of flying kicks at the criminal mastermind's hidden face- the first caught Slade and sent him stumbling back, but before the second could make contact he seized his opponent's foot and flung him to the side. Robin twisted in midair and landed on his feet, and then pulled a series of freeze-bombs from his belt. One by one he sent them flying at Slade, and one by one his nemesis dodged them; they impacted his console and encased it in overlapping sheets of ice.

"Foolish of you, Robin," Slade observed. "Did you really think that destroying my controls would be enough to stop my device? Did you think I would make such an obvious mistake?"

"No, but it was worth a try." Robin smirked. "And I thought you said we were done talking."

Slade made no response- he simply charged forward with his staff swinging, as ever remarkably quick and agile for a large and muscular man. Now Robin was the one forced to parry, and Slade was using his greater strength to his advantage to force him back into a corner. With a clever twist, he wrenched the staff from Robin's hands, and a kick slammed him back against the wall.

"And so it ends," Slade said thoughtfully, raising the tip of his staff over Robin's face. "Almost… anticlimactic, really. Disappointing."

"Oh, I don't think so!" Twisting, Robin pulled himself up and slammed both feet into Slade's chest. The criminal stumbled back, and the Titans leader grabbed his own staff back up, holding it at the ready. "This has only just begun."

"You're right," a third voice said from the still-open door. "It has." Something whirred through the air and struck the floor between Robin and Slade- a knife. Both combatants turned slowly to face the thrower, who crouched just outside the door, on the platform that now overlooked the city. She held a staff of her own at the ready, identical to theirs- Robin wondered what had happened to her sword. Her one visible eye was hard.

"What's this?" Ravager asked. "You started without me? I'm hurt."

# # # # # # # # # # # #

"What's it gonna take to get through this, anyway?" Cyborg demanded, ducking as the forcefield reflected a blast from his sonic cannon back at him. "I don't know where Slade steals his shield generators from, but whoever they are, they know what they're doing."

"Perhaps if we both struck at once?" Starfire asked him, landing lightly beside him on the roof of a building near the tower and its crater.

Cyborg glanced at her and nodded. "Can't hurt," he said. Raising his cannon again, he leveled it and aimed carefully for a spot on the forcefield, and saw Starfire pointing her green-glowing hands at the same spot. Both Titans built up energy for several heartbeats, then unleashed their blasts at full power. They impacted the side of the shield, their intersection causing a massive explosion rather than a deflection, but when the smoke cleared, the shield was still there.

"Well, it was worth a try," Cyborg said.

"Dude!" Beast Boy shouted, landing beside him and changing back into his true form. "Why don't you use those giant cannons of doom you roasted Trigon's army with back when they were trying to take over the world? Bet that would punch through this."

"Bet it would," Cyborg told him, "but it won't work. I need to be hooked up to the Tower generator to get that much power, and it's too far away. There's a reason I don't do that very often."

"Oh. Guess that makes sense." Beast Boy looked deflated. "I got nothing."

"We must get inside!" Starfire said. "Robin needs our help. We cannot let him fight Slade alone!"

"Sounds to me like you need a hand," a familiar voice said from the behind them; the Titans turned to see Raven dropping lightly to the roof. She glided over to the edge and glanced at the tower. "Looks like Slade decided subtlety wasn't really his style after all."

"Raven!" Beast Boy shouted. "Where were you, anyway? We've been working our butts off over here!"

"I've been finding out things about our 'friend' Ravager," Raven said. "And its now good. I saw her get through the forcefield with some kind of gadget just before I got here. If Robin's in there with her and Slade, he's in trouble."

"What do you mean?" Cyborg asked.

"She's Slade's daughter," Raven replied. "I'm not sure what she's after, but I don't think she's stable, and I don't think she's on our side."

"Whoa," Beast Boy said. "Slade's a dad? That's just _wrong_. Creepy supervillains shouldn't _be_ dads- it's too weird." He glanced at Raven. "No offense." She ignored him.

"All right," Cyborg said. "We need a plan. I think I can take down the tower and stop whatever signal Slade's sending- if he builds something, I can figure out how to break it. But I need to get past that shield." He looked at Rave. "Think you can get me through. "

"Probably," Raven told him. "Energy is energy, whether its produced by science or magic- I think I can at least tear a hole in it big enough to get you through."

"All right, then," Cyborg said. "If Raven can get me through, I'm taking the shield down first, then the tower. Beast Boy, turn into something small and come with me- I might need someone who can get into tight spaces. Star…"

"When the shield comes down," she said in a quiet but resolute voice, "I will find Robin."

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Slade turned slowly away from Robin to face Ravager, his eye visibly tightening from anger. When he spoke, however, his voice was as eerily calm as ever. "You wear my mask, child," he said, "and yet I do not know you, and you oppose me. _Who are you_?" The chill in his voice as he spoke those last words was so palpable Robin could almost feel it on his skin.

But Ravager only laughed bitterly. "Who am I?" she asked. "What's the matter- old age getting to you? Don't tell me you haven't forgotten me already." Reaching up, she pulled her mask off and shook out her hair- beneath the mask she had two normal eyes, and they both fixed on Slade with absolute intensity. "Hi, Dad. It's me- Rose. Miss me?"

Slade did not move, but his eye narrowed further so that it was a barely visible slit; he and Ravager stood facing each other and Robin watched them both, mind working furiously to take in what he was hearing. "Liar," Slade said in his quietest, most dangerous voice. "My daughter is dead. _Who are you?_"

"Daughter?" Robin asked. "What is going on here?"

Both Slade and Ravager ignored him. "Dead?" the mysterious girl asked. "No- I didn't die. Neither did my brothers, not that you ever bothered to find out. Want to know how? Let me refresh your memory*- you were Slade Wilson, experimental super-soldier, and you retired from the army with honor to raise a family. But you missed the thrill, didn't you, so you hired yourself out as a mercenary- the best of the best, sometimes calling yourself Deathstroke, sometimes Terminator, sometimes both. You tried to keep it secret from your family, but we found out- on the day that a gang of your enemies showed up and decided to put an end to you once and for all."

Ravager- Rose- closed her eyes, and Robin could see the pain washing across her face. "There was the fight- and the fire… Joey got hurt, and Mom was furious at you for endangering us… she pulled a gun on you and fired, shot out your eye… then everything got so confused; I got Grant and Joey out, don't remember how, but Mom didn't make it. The house collapsed, and we thought you had escaped another day… I promised my brothers you were alive and you'd come for us… but you never did.

"Since then, I've been through orphanages, foster homes, and juvenile detention centers- more than I can remember. I was sure by then that you were dead, because that had to be the only reason you wouldn't try to find me (I lost track of Joey and Grant a while back). But then I saw in the papers, about a one-eyed man in a mask who called himself Slade, who was supposed to be one of the best warriors in the world, and wanted to rule it- and I knew it had to be you. It couldn't be coincidence."

Her voice shook with emotion as she drew herself up, eyes flashing. "So now I've found you. Take a good, long look. You abandoned me once before- what about now? Am I someone worth paying attention to now? Am I the daughter you wanted? Are you still someone I can look up to? Or are you going to just walk away, prove yourself to be heartless, so I can have revenge instead?"

Slade stood perfectly still, regarding Rose with cold calculation- and when he spoke, there was nothing human in his voice. "Once I deluded myself into thinking I could find fulfillment in a normal life," he said. "But I was wrong. Only power can bring satisfaction- power over myself, over others, over the world. Even now the most advanced weapons system on the planet is at my fingertips- should I walk away from that, for you?" His eye narrowed. "You are no daughter of mine. I _have_ no daughter."

Ravager screamed then, a sound of absolute rage, grief, and pain, and she hurled herself at her father, staff raised to strike. Slade brought his own weapon up to parry and they fought, striking and dodging so quickly and furiously that even Robin's trained eye could barely follow them. Rose was a good fighter, he knew, but she was no match for Slade, who was, with one exception, the most dangerous hand-to-hand combatant Robin had ever faced- he ran forward to help her.

"Stay back, Robin!" she snapped at him. "He's _mine_!"

"You can't do this alone!"

"I said he's _mine_," Ravager snarled, and she whirled on him, while behind her Slade moved in to strike. Before he could, however, the entire tower bucked beneath them, and when Robin looked out through the door, he saw the forcefield shimmer and collapse.

"What?" Slade demanded in disbelief.

"I'd say that was my friends, taking out your shield generator," Robin replied. "See- it pays to have backup. They're probably getting ready to bring this whole place down any time."

"No!" Slade hissed. He glanced angrily at his still-frozen control consoles, and then turned and charged straight towards Robin and Ravager, knocking them both out of his way. Reaching the balcony outside the door, he turned and began to climb a small ladder up to the pinnacle of the tower.

"You won't get away that easily!" Ravager shouted. Quickly, she ran through the door herself and began to climb after her father; Robin followed close behind, but took more caution- a fall from this height wouldn't be pleasant, to say the least. Ravager, however, seemed beyond concern as she climbed.

Nearing the top, Robin saw that the tower was capped with a platform on which perched the communications array, which was pointed upwards and apparently engaged in sending a signal. Wired at its base was a strange, pulsing crystal; as Slade reached it, he quickly began to pry it out. At that moment, Ravager reached the top herself; hurling herself forward, she hit him in the side of the head with a flying kick; Slade stumbled backwards, but his mask went flying over the edge of the platform. Slowly he turned, and for the first time Robin looked on his enemy's living face.

Slade seemed to be middle-aged, his hair and short, neat beard the same pure white as his daughter's. One eye was covered by a patch, the other glittered with bright malice. Even with the mask removed, the eye seemed the only thing alive in that dead, expressionless face.

Ravager spun her staff, and her father met it; backward and forward they dueled across the platform. Robin neared the top of the ladder and was about to spring into action himself, but before he could, the tower rocked beneath him again. The ladder was torn from its position and hung crookedly off the side. Robin hung on with one hand, trying desperately to find a hold with the other on the shaking metal, forcibly reminded of some of the circus tricks he'd done as a child- but this time there was no net to catch him…

And then strong arms were around him, and he was being lifted up into the air. "Do not be afraid, Robin," Starfire's voice said into his ear. "I have you."

"Star!" Robin said, "I've never been happier than seeing you now. What's going on?"

"Cyborg has destroyed the shield," Starfire told him. "He and Beast Boy have entered the tower and planted a series of explosives in its core- soon, it will collapse. Raven moved Sharpshot to safety- he was the only living person we found nearby. Where is Slade?"

"He and Ravager are up there," Robin said, pointing at the top of the tower. "Still fighting, last I saw." Suddenly he drew in a deep breath. "Ravager! She's still up there. I don't care what happens to Slade, but if we don't warn her, she'll be killed."

"Robin," Starfire said, "there are things about Ravager that you should…"

"I know," Robin said. "She's Slade's daughter. I don't know what to think about that, or her- but I don't think she's an evil person, and she doesn't deserve to die for her father's crimes."

"Then, there is nothing… between you?"

Robin chuckled and shook his head. "No- there never was. Ravager's an interesting person, and I think she needs help more than prison- but she's not you, Star. No one else is."

Starfire gripped Robin slightly more tightly. "Thank you," she said quietly, and craning his neck, Robin could see her turning to look up. "Then let us rescue her!" Together they shot towards the top of the tower- there, on the shaking platform, Ravager and Slade still fought; she was faster, but he was stronger and more skilled. The fight wouldn't be a short or easy one, but Robin had no doubt who would win- assuming the tower didn't blow out beneath them, of course.

"Ravager!" he shouted. "Rose! Get away- the whole thing's going to blow! Save yourself!"

She turned to face him, and Robin saw the shock and fear in her eyes. She jumped backwards as Slade aimed another blow at her, and then turned and ran for the edge of the platform, fumbling for something on her belt. From the distance he was at, it was hard to tell, but it looked almost like a grappler- she had it out, and was on the edge, Slade behind her…

Then the whole tower shook, and a series of explosions rocked it at its base. It made a terrible groaning sound, and shivered- and then collapsed back into its crater with a roar of fire and smoke, Cyborg having placed his explosives carefully so it would fall inward, rather than out. Looking down, Robin could see the flaming debris fill the crater below; there was no sign of Slade or his daughter.

"I am sorry, Robin," Starfire said into his ear.

"It's not your fault, Star," Robin said quietly. "Maybe she got away- maybe she didn't. But whatever signal Slade was sending from here- he said it would let him control the most powerful weapons in the world- is gone now. Whether or not he survived, he's been stopped, and lost a lot of hardware." He turned to look at Starfire and put a hand on one of hers. "It's over."

*This origin for Slade is adapted from his comic one, altered to better fit the animated version's different personality and goals.


	14. Epilogue: New Beginning

**Epilogue: New Beginning**

Robin stood with the other Titans and watched as the firemen swarmed about the wreckage of Slade's signal tower- the crater around it had prevented the flames from the explosion from spreading, but they were taking no chances. "Any sign of them?" Robin finally asked.

Cyborg shook his head. "No. The fireman I talked to said they hadn't found any bodies in the rubble- that could mean that they both got pasted so hard there's nothing recognizable left, or it could mean they survived. Unless either of them shows up again, there's no way to be sure."

"I wouldn't trust Slade to be dead unless I saw the body myself," Robin said. "And even then, he's been dead before. But this time his operation got smashed, his robots were destroyed, and the weapon he was working on is gone. It'll probably be awhile before he shows himself again, if he ever does- but we'll be ready for him." He lowered his voice. "I'm not sure about Ravager- Rose- but I hope she didn't die. She was someone who'd been hurt very bad- she did some bad things, but she didn't deserve that."

"I still can't believe Slade had kids," Beast Boy said, shaking his head. "I mean, who knew? It's just… too weird."

"I think it made sense," Robin mused. "I'd wondered why he was so fixated on finding an apprentice, but maybe he was trying to replace what he'd lost, in his own sick way. But he never could, because he didn't really understand why it was important in the first place." He sighed. "After all he did, I can't stop hating him. But maybe I can feel a little sorry for him, too."

They were quiet for a while before Robin spoke again. "She was wrong about us," he said. "Ravager, I mean. She said I was like her, not you, but I don't think she really understood. We've all suffered, but we were able to come together and learn to work as a team to save our city- and each other- more times than I can count. That means something- something more than who has powers or not."

"I used to think I could solve all my problems by bottling them up and not letting anybody get close to me," Raven said quietly. "Then I realized that if I shared my problems with friends, you could help me- and I could help you. You can walk through the dark alone, but walking through it with a friend makes it easier for both of you." She glanced over at the rubble. "Maybe if she'd learned that, it wouldn't have ended like it did."

"We will always be with you, Robin," Starfire said, stepping forward and putting her hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah," Beast Boy put in. "What else are friends for, anyway?"

"And I'll be there for all of you," Robin said, smiling. "Because whatever happens, we're the Titans, and if we work together, we can overcome anything."

Below them the firemen finished extinguishing the collapsed tower, and the Titans stood together quietly, watching the sun rise over their city.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

What a night. Even Jump City wasn't prepared for everything that had happened- the sudden appearance of a giant tower in the middle of downtown, tearing up several city blocks, the news going wild with word of a terrorist attack on the Midwest- things were calming down now, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Titans, but Will Johnson for one was glad that the night's chaos was almost over.

He stifled a yawn as he drove his taxi down a street- downtown, but a pretty fair distance from where all the chaos was happening- and checked his watch, happily noting that he'd be off duty soon and be able to get some actual sleep. Suddenly catching movement from the corner of his eye, however, Will turned to look and saw someone hailing him from the side of the road- a woman in a hooded coat, though it wasn't cold out. Sighing, he pulled the cab over to the curb.

A few strands of hair poked out from under the woman's hood, and at first he thought she was old, because it was pure white, but as she climbed into the back seat he saw her face in one of his mirrors, and realized she was just a girl- even younger than him. And those pants she had on looked awfully like part of a combat jumpsuit…

Will cleared his throat. "Where to?" he asked.

"The airport," the girl said in a quiet, dangerous voice. "Get me there as fast as you can, and no questions."

"Fine, fine- wasn't gonna ask any," Will said. Figured that the last customer of his shift would be a grouch. Hitting the ignition, he pulled the cab back into the street and headed out towards the airport.

In his backseat, Rose Wilson, alias Ravager, sat perfectly still on the way to the place where she'd find a way out of Jump City- and hopefully, into a new life.

AN: Thanks for everyone who read and reviewed- I really appreciate it! I hope you all have been enjoying my "Titans Saga" so far- I've only got one more long fic planned at the moment, tying up the Jinx/HIVE plotline, and then I'll be through (barring new ideas). I probably won't be starting that one for a little bit, though- I've got some other fics I'd like to wrap up first. Thanks again, and (hopefully) see you all soon!- Ghandalf


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